


Evocation

by scienceblues



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Dungeons & Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Angst with a Happy Ending, Demonic Possession, Dragons, First Meetings, Getting Together, M/M, Noodle Dragons, Overwatch Ensemble - Freeform, Reaper | Gabriel Reyes Redemption, Secret Identity, dungeons & dragons AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2020-01-06 13:56:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,573
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18389780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scienceblues/pseuds/scienceblues
Summary: Nobody believes him, but Jesse knows what he saw the day the Watch burned: a great black dragon perched over the remains of the organization’s headquarters. Years later, the Fall still haunts him in more ways than one, but he's learned to live with the mark it's left on him.Until he catches wind that Gabriel Reyes didn’t die that day.-----Written for the 2018/2019 McHanzo Big Bang.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Been sitting on this idea for...a _long_ time, folks. Like, not long after I first started writing Overwatch fic. Super excited to share it with you all at long last! Art is linked in the end notes of the chapter the illustrated scenes are from.
> 
> A few warnings that pop up only once or twice in the fic: non-graphic D&D-flavored battles/violence, mentions of past loss of limb and associated PTSD, alcohol use/mentions, cult activity. Nothing too intense imo, all falls within the range of typical D&D stuff, but please be aware that these are all in here to some extent!
> 
> Some clarifying notes in case anyone's curious:  
> -I'm on D&D withdrawal (which is why I wrote this in the first place), so please excuse any minor mistakes. I did double and triple check everything to be compliant with 5e, though there are a few notable exceptions that are intentional. Like:  
> -Yes, most of the constructs are basically warforged even though it's a custom setting, we're just using the generic term because reasons  
> 

Smoke hung low and hazy over the bar, keeping the interior dim. It suited Jesse just fine. On any other day he might prefer a cleaner place, but as it was, the haze gave Jesse a convenient excuse for the tears that constantly prickled at the corners of his eyes, threatening to break free at any moment.

Fareeha didn’t seem to be doing much better than him, although she handled herself with more decorum; rather than slump across the scarred wooden surface of the bar, full of too much drink, she paid careful attention to how many pints of the shitty, watered-down ale she consumed and stayed morosely quiet.

Didn’t seem right, to have one of Helm’s chosen in such low spirits on his feast day. But the two of them were wrapped up in memories of another of his chosen, with only drink for comfort. 

“You should be at the temple,” Jesse said, squinting into the bottom of his tankard. Only the shallowest film of ale covered the bottom, but he swallowed that down anyway before raising his glass in the bartender’s direction. “Today’s s’posed to be about celebrating you, too.”

“I don’t feel much like celebrating, either.” Fareeha paused while the barman sloshed some more ale into Jesse's glass, filling it only halfway, before pushing hers towards the barman as well. A glimpse of the holy tattoo around her eye quieted any protests he might have had, and soon enough hers was filled to the brim.

Jesse frowned, and before Fareeha could protest, tried to grab her tankard. His hand closed on empty air as she pushed it out of his reach. “The temples only ever have mead, anyway. Not to my taste.” She took a careful sip of her drink and made a face, shaking her head. “Not that this really is, either.”

“Is it anyone's?" Jesse grumbled. "Shit. Has it always been this bad?”

“What, the ale?”

“No, I mean — well, yes, the ale. But.” Jesse waved halfheartedly at the bar as a whole. “The celebration? The speeches? 'M happy they mentioned both of you this year, don't get me wrong, but after what Reinhardt said—”

“He might’ve been wrong.” Fareeha didn’t sound very convinced, and when Jesse looked over in disbelief, she hid her face in her mug to avoid eye contact.

He snorted instead, and finished off the last of the miserable ale. He didn’t bother beckoning for another. “Not sure if I wish he was. Knew it was too good to be true when he said Gabriel’s alive.”

“Wish he hadn’t had anything more to say after that,” Fareeha agreed. She swept her hair behind a pointed ear and laughed bitterly. “I guess family always lets us down eventually, right?”

“Don’t have to say it like  _ that _ .”

“Mom never let me join the Watch, even after I came of age. Jack and Gabriel were too scared of what she’d do if they let me in anyway to do anything about it. At least Dad put me with the other hunters whenever Mom shipped me off to visit him.”

“Gabe never let me down,” Jesse said glumly. “Not ‘til now.”

Fareeha’s light shove sent Jesse off balance, tipping his chin out of his hand. “He still might not have. We don’t know anything for certain.”

“Don’t think he can come back from this,” he mumbled. “You weren’t there, Ree. You didn’t see that  _ thing _ . If he’s working for it, there’s no redeeming him.”

“No such thing,” she said hotly, clearly ready to defend Gabriel, but he waved her off, too unsteady to argue the point.

“I know.” Wearily, he folded his arms on the bar top and buried his head in the welcoming darkness they promised. “If Reinhardt was right, then that isn’t even Gabriel anymore.”

Stomach roiling from the unwelcome truth in his words and the liters of ale souring in his gut, Jesse let the roar of the celebration fade into background noise, sinking further into his misery. He felt Fareeha’s hand come to rest on his back and shifted his weight to mumble his thanks, but found her turned away, speaking to someone sitting at the stool next to hers. 

At least the dizzy, sick feeling let him fall into an uneasy doze on the bar counter as her voice faded into an even drone. 

 

* * *

 

“Come  _ on _ , Jesse, we’re going to be  _ late _ !”

As frantic as Fareeha sounded, it wasn’t until something heavy impacted with his side that Jesse lifted his head from the pillow, squinting around in confusion. One of his boots sat innocently on top of the blanket covering him, leaving little doubt about Fareeha’s chosen projectile. 

“Late for what?” he groaned, settling back into bed with a heavy sigh. His head didn’t ache nearly as much as he expected, after a day like the previous — Fareeha must’ve caved and spelled him before they turned in last night. He only had the vaguest recollection of him and Fareeha propping themselves up against each other on the way back to their rented room; he didn’t doubt he’d have missed a quietly muttered spell. Still, sinking back into the depths of the pillow was preferable to anything Fareeha might have planned.

“Worry about that later, just pack your stuff now,” Fareeha said as she threw more of her belongings into her bag. Jesse briefly considered letting her leave on her own if she wanted to be in such a rush, until she found his other boot on the floor and lifted it consideringly in his direction.   
  
Gathering his arms under him, Jesse pushed himself upright with a groan and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. Loathe as he was to leave their accommodations, which were far more comfortable than their usual on account of the festival, the note of urgency in Fareeha's voice sounded real. If she thought it was important, he'd follow her lead.   
  
Most of his gear was still in his pack, even if half of it spilled out onto the floor from various searches for a particular item. All Jesse needed to do was dress and shove the encroaching mass fully into his bag, heedless of the mess it would leave for him later.    
  
“Come on, hurry up,” he said with amusement, slinging his pack over his shoulder and standing over Fareeha. The beads in her hair swung against her face as she leveled a glare at him and resumed shoving her assortment of armor and weapons into the depths of her haversack. Rustic in appearance, with leather and buckles making it sturdy enough for the road, but fancy in nature, enough to fit the endless amounts of supplies Fareeha insisted on keeping with her just in case. "Need help with that?"   
  
The glare only intensified, and Fareeha shoved past him once she tightened the straps of her bag. “We can grab something from the kitchen to eat on the go, but we have to be quick about it,” she called over her shoulder.

“On the road to where, though?”   
  
“Less talking, more walking!”

Fareeha's words turned out to be painfully true — by the time they passed through the gates under the watchful eye of the town guard, Jesse was beginning to huff slightly from the pace she set, although she looked irritatingly unbothered by her speed. Damn elves. “Can't keep going like this the whole way if you want me alive by the time we get wherever we're headed,” he said, trying to regulate his breathing so she didn't notice how winded he was. Judging by the faint laugh she had the decency to hide behind her hand, he suspected he'd failed.   
  
“The meeting spot's not too far from here,” she explained, casting a glance towards the gradually thickening forest flanking the main road out of town. “You’ll survive.”

She kept her eyes on the trees to one side of the road, with strict instructions to Jesse to cover the other side and let her know if he saw anyone there. Didn’t seem any different from their usual. The roads were more dangerous than ever, these days, and traveling as a pair wasn’t enough to keep them safe from the worst threat.

“There he is!”

Jesse startled when Fareeha suddenly broke away from his side, bounding with long-legged strides up the slight incline leading away from the path. A man emerged from the woods to greet her warmly, dressed finer than he should be for the road. The light silk looked well-suited for midsummer, but somehow bore no signs of wear from the road. His black hair sat high atop his head except for two steel-gray streaks that sprang loose at his temples. Human, from what Jesse could see of the ears below.

“Friend of yours?” Jesse called, trudging the short distance to rejoin the others. 

One corner of the man's mouth lifted in a faint smile, and Jesse only had a moment to hotly wonder what about him was so funny before Fareeha said, “You don't remember him from the bar?”

Thinking back, Jesse only found the faintest memory of more revelers ready to congratulate one of Helm’s honored followers after the alcohol finally got the best of him. Couldn’t say he recognized the man himself, though. “Recent friend, then. My apologies — I don't recall much of yesterday, if we're being honest.”

“No apology necessary. My name is Shimada Hanzo, since it seems I didn't make a sufficient impression when we spoke last night.” Fortunately, Hanzo's demeanor seemed more amused than offended. Rare, to meet a noble who didn’t act like the whole damn world revolved around them — and there was hardly any chance he  _ wasn’t _ from some fancy castle, unless Jesse severely misread the quality of his gear.

“Pleased to meet any friend of Fareeha's.” True enough, even if Jesse wished one of them would explain what the rush was all about. “Name's Joel.”

There it was again, that damnable smirk. “ _ That _ is categorically untrue,” Hanzo pointed out, voice light.

“You introduced yourself last night,” Fareeha said, exasperated but fond. “With your real name.”

“Aw, hell.”

“I have no interest in the law or your encounters with it, Mr. McCree.” Hanzo's voice cut smoothly through his mounting concern. “Except as it becomes relevant on our travels.”

Fareeha must have been able to see the question on his face. All traces of humor vanished from her expression as she sobered. “Last night, Hanzo offered his help in — well, I'm not exactly sure what we'll be doing. But I'd like to find out if that really was Gabriel that Reinhardt saw, and if it was, we need to help him. Fix whatever’s been done to him. He wouldn't — he wouldn't just leave without a word after everything he put into the Watch. I  _ know _ that.”

Jesse took in the firm grip on her pendant, the token of the god she and Gabriel shared, and felt another prickle of frustrated tears at the corners of his eyes. The unspoken weight of their suspicion that he’d left and was now allied with those that brought the Watch down hung between them. He didn't want to believe it, either, and even if they wound up regretting what they found, at least they'd be doing their memory of Gabriel justice. They owed him that much —  _ Jesse _ in particular owed him that much, after all he'd done for him over the years. “Don't know if we'll much like what we see, but I'm with you.”

“Good.” Fareeha nodded, firm and decisive. “We’ll be safer on the road with three people instead of two, and Hanzo said he can keep us away from danger in the first place.”

Now  _ that _ was interesting. Handy, if it was true, but there was nothing immediately apparent on Hanzo’s person that revealed any clues about whether his words had any weight to them, so Jesse resigned himself to believing it if he ever saw it.

Still, Fareeha was right — a third person would go a long ways towards deterring bandits and the like while on the move. “Sounds alright to me,” Jesse said agreeably. “But I have to ask - what do you get out of it? Surely you ain't joining two strangers on a lark.”

Hanzo lifted an eyebrow in disbelief. “Even those of us far to the north heard of what Gabriel Reyes accomplished. If he is alive and missing instead of dead, then as someone who appreciates not living under the reign of a demonic cult, I feel the least I can do is offer my help towards finding him.”

Fair enough. Jesse didn’t remember too much of the panic that swept across most of the continent, demon-fueled constructs ignoring borders in the path of their destruction, but everyone was aware of the cult responsible for bringing the demons into the plane in the first place. After they were pushed back, with the threat of attack no longer looming over the most powerful cities and most rural hamlets alike, everyone became equally aware of those who were responsible for their salvation.

It was easy to forget, sometimes, that the rest of the world had been in awe of Gabriel Reyes for years before Jesse even met the man. The sheen had worn off right quick when Jesse first came to the Watch, steadily replaced with a bone-deep respect that formed the foundation for the rest of his years there.

Now that foundation was at risk, if Gabriel had become what they thought instead of dying in the rubble of the Watch. “Did you tell him?”

Fareeha hesitated long enough that Jesse didn’t need to hear her answer. “He’s not just missing,” Jesse explained, watching Hanzo’s head tilt curiously at the revelation. “We stopped in to visit one of the old guard a week ago, stayed with him and his apprentice a few days. They said they saw him during a skirmish a few weeks past.”

“So he’s not only alive, he’s also well enough to fight?”

“Seems so. Just...on the wrong side.”

“He was with known members of Talon,” Fareeha said, mouth set into a grim line. “But if we can track him down,  _ talk _ to him...we know there’s more to it. He wouldn’t save everyone from one cult and then decide to help the next to rise. All the cult activity on the roads have been making everyone afraid of the next strike. That’s the opposite of what he’d ever want.”

Said like that, Jesse almost believed her. He at least believed her conviction would get them as far as they were able, and if that led them right to Gabriel — well, he followed Fareeha for a reason. 

Her words seemed to convince Hanzo as well. “So we need to be even more cautious about finding him,” he said slowly, mulling it over, and then nodded decisively. “Very well. Did you have any leads in mind that you wanted to pursue first? Anyone else who might be targeted, or know what he’s after?”

Jesse and Fareeha looked at each other, both realizing the flaw in their plan. “We didn’t quite get that far in planning,” Jesse admitted. “If you got any ideas, we’d love to hear ‘em.”

“You said there was a skirmish. Was he attacking them specifically?”

“Reinhardt thought so.”

“Reinhardt also said one of his lieutenants was killed not long ago,” Jesse said slowly. “Said that was why he agreed to take on Brigitte, didn’t he? Wonder if Gabriel’s been doing more than just skirmishing.” Deliberately targeting former agents for murder was on a whole different level than even working with a cult. Jesse had to swiftly bury a seed of doubt over whether there was even anything left to bring back, if that was the case — but he still wanted answers, now that he thought tracking down Gabriel might be possible.

“In that case, who remains from the top ranks of the Watch? That seems like the obvious place to start,” Hanzo pointed out. “If something happened to make him ally with a cult, something that made him want to eliminate former agents, wouldn’t they be the most likely targets?”

“Well, there’s Reinhardt.”

Fareeha rolled her eyes. Unfairly, Jesse thought — as if he weren’t answering the question. “Who we just saw. He already told us what he knows and already made himself scarce.”

“Torbjörn.”

“From what Reinhardt and Brigitte said, there’s no way they’re telling us where he is. Still too upset over what happened. Doubt Gabriel could find him if they’re not talking.”

Jesse hesitated, but Fareeha barreled on. “Mom’s dead. So is Morrison. Liao left right after the Watch was officially formed and hadn’t seen any of the others since then, so I think they’re a dead end.”

“Still not convinced they even existed,” Jesse muttered.

“Winston?”

“Hid away in his workshop even when Gabriel was his normal self. Nice guy, but there’s no way he’s any more aware of what’s happening outside his projects now than when the Watch was active, and probably not worth Gabriel going after.”

“What about Tracer?” Hanzo asked. 

“Lena? What about her?”

Hanzo shrugged. “She may not have fought the constructs, but the rest of us knew her as the face of the Watch. She’d be the most obvious target. Would she have been high enough to have an idea about what is so important that Reyes has turned against his own creation?”

Fareeha cocked her head thoughtfully. “You may have a point,” she said. Jesse fought down an irrational surge of jealousy that she’d shot down all his suggestions but gave the newcomer some consideration. It made sense, and he knew it.

“Might’ve been a coincidence that Gabriel wound up going after Reinhardt,” he said stubbornly. When both Fareeha and Hanzo turned to him in disbelief, he shrugged. “You never know.”

“I don’t think we’ll find out for sure until we find Gabriel,” Fareeha said, considering. “I think that still has to be our top priority. Better to keep everyone safe by stopping him soon instead of getting people safe individually. I know Reinhardt said he and Brigitte barely fought him off, but with the three of us? If we manage to find him, figure out if there was a misunderstanding, maybe — since it’s us—”

“We have to try, at least.” Jesse paused to look at the newcomer. The quality of his gear looked good, and the longbow hanging carefully across Hanzo’s back looked even more expensive than Jesse’s crossbow with all its custom rigging and enhancements to take the place of his missing arm, but all that said was that Hanzo had the coin to look the part.

“Are you any good with that?” Fareeha asked, gesturing to the bow. Small wonder she’d jumped to the same concerns he did, given the amount of trouble they narrowly avoided on a regular basis.

Hanzo barked out a laugh. “I wouldn’t carry it otherwise. I’d wager my aim is the best you can find.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking that wager sometime.” Jesse flashed a lazy grin and patted the hand crossbow holstered at his hip. “Nice to have someone else along who appreciates the finer points of marksmanship.”

Next to him, he heard Fareeha grouse, “My glaive has a fine enough point that I don’t  _ need _ marksmanship.”

Hanzo hummed as he looked Jesse up and down, assessing. “I look forward to testing that.” Hardly even sounded like a challenge, put like that. Jesse could respect a man with that kind of easy confidence in his own skills.

“Well, we should have most of the day to get on our way. Might be able to get to the next big town and sleep indoors another night before we have to switch to sleeping off the road. Would’ve had longer if Jesse hadn’t slept so long, but…”

“I can get us further than this next town, wherever it is,” Hanzo interrupted. “I passed close enough to the capital on my travels that I should be able to get us much closer by teleporting.”

“You can  _ teleport _ ?” 

“Did you attend one of the colleges?” Fareeha asked, brow furrowed.

“No, I had tutors.” Hanzo shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable at the sudden questions.  _ Expensive ones _ , Jesse figured that meant. “But in this case, I can only teleport thanks to an item I own.”

“Well, sounds damn useful to me. Do you need to prepare anything, or can we just…?” He wiggled his fingers, suddenly realizing he was entirely unaware of what went into physically fucking  _ teleporting _ halfway across the continent, even if it only came down to having the coin to buy such an item.

“I will need to look at a map, to figure out where would be the best place to bring us,” Hanzo said, and Fareeha slung her haversack so that it dangled off of one arm, reaching inside and pulling out the waxed map that had guided their way the past couple of years. 

Hanzo’s finger traced lightly across its surface, mouth pulled into a concentrated frown as he surveyed the routes that led to the capital. “There,” he said finally, tapping a town labeled  _ Alder's Creek _ in tiny print. “There’s a village just to the south that I passed through — that should be the closest I can get us.”

“Looks like it’ll only take us two weeks to get to Meridian from that distance, maybe a little less if we hurry,” Fareeha mused. She rolled up the map and replaced it in her bag, her interest in the magic behind it seemingly placated by their journey being shortened to a third of what it would’ve taken otherwise. 

“Sounds good to—” Jesse began, just as he saw Hanzo’s lips shape a sibilant phrase, and then the ground fell out beneath him. 

Jesse reflexively shut his eyes to try and steady the unpleasant lurch in his gut. As soon as his feet found solid ground again, he dropped to his knees, trying to rid himself of the feeling of the magic taking hold and yanking him along, barely managing to maintain control over his stomach as he breathed through the sensation. 

“Hey, Jess, you okay?” He felt Fareeha’s hand come to rest on his back, even through the thick leather of his armor. He appreciated the pulse of healing warmth that washed through him, even if it didn’t do much for regular nausea. 

“Yeah, just — not used to magic,” he said through clenched teeth. Regulating his breaths until the worst of the feeling passed took a minute, but did the trick, and when he straightened again it was with only the faintest twinge of complaint from his head and stomach. “Holy hells, Hanzo.”

“My apologies.” Hanzo’s voice was stiff, as if he wasn’t sorry at all, but he looked rapidly between Jesse and Fareeha. Worried, and unable to hide it. “I didn’t realize it could affect anyone so strongly.”

Great. So Jesse just couldn’t handle being  _ thrown halfway across a continent _ in an instant. But one look at Hanzo’s stricken face guilted him into backing down, and he pushed away the unfair rush of annoyance towards their new companion. “Just give more of a heads up next time, will you?”

Hanzo nodded quickly enough. Jesse wasn’t sure if he should be insulted that Hanzo apparently thought they’d abandon him after a relatively minor misstep, or take it as a sign of how committed Hanzo was to joining them that he wanted so badly to remain. 

“You need a break?”

A look around revealed none of the dizziness remained. Besides, the skies were clear and the sun shone bright. Seemed a waste of such a perfect day to spend any more of it dawdling instead of getting started.

“I’m good,” Jesse said, beckoning for Fareeha to move past him. “Lead the way.”

 

* * *

 

Teleportation was a handy enough trick, even accounting for the side effects. Jesse’d never had any knack for magic — hadn’t needed to, as the Watch had a use for people of all talents — but he wasn’t one to complain about cutting their trip short by several weeks with only a few words.

The road south from Alder's Creek was much better maintained than the roads in the rural provinces Jesse had been kicking around in lately, even if irregular mounds along the sides of the road marked places where constructs had fallen during the war and grown over with time. Even if it looked a little foreboding, he was glad they’d found a road with signposts along the way that they could use to confirm that they were heading towards Meridian. He was never the most skilled of outdoorsmen, and though Fareeha was skilled at tracking her way through untouched forest thanks to many years spent with her father and the wood elves, that didn’t mean she had a knack for finding her way towards one city out of many. They’d arrived at unintended destinations too many times to navigate unaided with a goal as important as theirs. 

Meanwhile, Hanzo seemed just as much at ease on the road as either of them. Wasn’t what Jesse expected, inviting a noble along; he’d figured having to take more frequent breaks or pay for an inn whenever it was available would just be the price they paid for having another person along. Once Hanzo brought up how much he could slim down their journey with teleportation, Jesse figured that would be a price well worth paying for the assistance.

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried — Hanzo proved to be clueless about only a few aspects of traveling rough, and a quick study to remedy them. Watching him keep up was a pleasant surprise, as was seeing him surpass himself and even sometimes Fareeha in finding food and water to stake their camp near.

Still, he was taken aback when Hanzo suddenly stopped in the middle of the path that would lead them down to the king’s road for the final stretch to the city. “There’s a group of people ahead at the fork in the road,” he announced, peering in the direction they’d been traveling as if for confirmation. “Most likely bandits.”

“How in the hells—” Jesse scanned ahead, wondering how he’d failed to notice something so obvious while leading the way, and saw nothing but bare stone-lined path until it disappeared around the bend. Surely there was no way he could miss something as important as  _ that _ . “There’s nothing there.”

“You brought me along to avoid danger on the road. Trust me, they’re there,” Hanzo said, voice tight. “We can go around, sneak through one of the fields to avoid them. There’s more of them than us.”

“We can try, but I don’t know that I’ll be sneaking by anything with eyes or ears with this on.” Fareeha knocked a gauntleted fist against her golden chestplate. “If Jesse doesn’t see anything, I don’t know that we need to, but we can give it a shot if you think we can find enough cover.”

Hanzo’s mouth flattened into a disappointed line. “You make a fair point. We can take the road, but prepare yourselves, in case they are bandits.”

“Sure thing.” Jesse pulled his crossbow from its holster and eased it onto the stump of his arm, checking for a secure fit before loading a bolt to keep at the ready. 

The next mile passed with Hanzo visibly on alert, although Jesse made sure to keep a careful eye ahead and on their surroundings in case Hanzo’s intuition was correct. 

When it came down to it, Jesse was the first to hear the clank of heavy gear among rustling leaves, positioned just around a bend in the road. “Off in the woods,” he murmured, and Fareeha shifted her glaive into a better grip. Hanzo’s bow had been out since his first warning, arrow kept at the ready.

“Afternoon, friends.” A hulking figure stepped out from the treeline. His easygoing tone seemed utterly at odds to his imposing stature, and even with his history, Jesse wondered for a second if there might be some other reason a well-armored goliath might be stopping a small group of travelers on the road. “Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I’m gonna need you to hand over your bags, and then you can be on your—”

Before the bandit leader could finish his sentence, Jesse brought his left arm up, steadied it with a hand underneath, and pressed the mechanism to send the prepared bolt flying right into the goliath’s shoulder.

At their leader’s enraged cry, more bandits came pouring out of the woods. Glaive out, Fareeha charged to meet them, ready as ever to prevent any of them from closing in on his ranged position. Jesse shifted his focus to the spellcaster in the back. He pumped out two more bolts that struck the elf square in the chest; an instant later, an arrow sprouted in the space between bolts.

The spellcaster fell upon impact, and before he could suppress the reflex, Jesse looked over in Hanzo’s direction, impressed. Wasn’t often that he came across anyone whose claims of accuracy weren’t exaggerated, but Hanzo’s gaze was already fixed on his next target with deadly focus. He sent another arrow towards the rogue attempting to flank Fareeha while Jesse watched. 

Jesse shook off his surprise and turned his crossbow towards the two dwarves trying to slip past Fareeha’s glaive.

Even considering the size of the group, it didn’t take long for the last of the bandits to fall. Fareeha grimaced and passed a hand over her face to magic away the signs of battle, while Jesse shamelessly began rifling through the pouches at each bandit’s belt, taking the coin but leaving the rest of the supplies. They weren’t so hard up that they needed to sell any mediocre weapon they came across for the meager profit it would bring, but extra coin never hurt.

A quick word of healing to the bruises no doubt blossoming under Fareeha’s armor from the hits she’d taken, followed by the shallow cut from a stray dagger Hanzo admitted to, and they were on their way. Fareeha’s mouth firmed into a disapproving line and didn’t waver, though Jesse figured it was from seeing just how unprotected Hanzo was under his fine clothing. They’d have to remedy that, and soon, if they wanted to get very far without losing their new partner.

But, as it turned out, Fareeha had more on her mind than just the unnecessary injury.

“How’d you know those bandits were coming?” Fareeha asked that night as she set up her bedroll.

Hanzo only looked up briefly in surprise before returning to his bag of rations. “Does it matter? I told you when we met that I had ways of detecting danger.”

“Don’t get me wrong, we’re glad you were able to give us a heads up—” Jesse said, shooting a worried look at Fareeha.

“But really, how?” she pressed on, stubborn til the end. Jesse suppressed a sigh. If Hanzo had just given a basic answer when she first asked, it might’ve been enough to satisfy her curiosity, but Jesse knew Fareeha. That tone of voice meant she wouldn’t let it go until she had the full answer.

She really was her mother’s daughter.

“As I said, I was schooled in magic from a young age. I would rather not discuss it further.” Hanzo’s voice sounded flat, but he didn’t look too upset by her refusal to drop the subject, so Jesse tried to ignore the voice in his head that was reminding him of the danger of traveling with strangers. Most likely he was just tired from walking all day — Jesse already felt an ache in his knees, and he wasn’t even fully human. “Do you particularly enjoy discussing the details of your magic?”

“Of course,” she said matter-of-factly. Jesse stifled a laugh when Hanzo blinked in surprise at her answer. “It comes from the god I serve and gives me the ability to protect people. Why wouldn’t I want to talk about it?”

“Not all of us are so fortunate to have such a noble source of power.” 

“Is this about the dragon thing?”

Hanzo’s head whipped in Jesse’s direction. “The  _ what _ ?” he said, visibly alarmed.

Sure, Jesse didn’t know too much about magic, but he didn’t think he was  _ that _ far off. “Saw some ink on your wrist a couple days ago. That’s how some folks get their magic, right? Your family history gets a little scaly at some point — I’m not one to judge — and it makes you more inclined to the arcane?”

Jesse hadn’t seen a look of such resigned exasperation aimed in his direction since Fareeha’s mother passed. “That is  _ not _ the reason I can use magic.”

“It was a fair guess!” 

“It...was, I suppose.” Hanzo sighed. “My family expected my brother and I to be proficient in both magical and martial combat. We were not given the option of specializing either way. A few of my ancestors only ever mastered one or the other, but I was fortunate enough to become skilled in both.” As innocuous as it all sounded, the reluctant note to Hanzo’s voice told Jesse not to press further. 

“Well, it clearly paid off. Glad to have had the heads up.” Jesse tipped a grateful nod in Hanzo’s direction. 

“Sound a bit like your training for the Watch, Jesse?”

Oh,  _ no _ . “You weren’t even there for all of that, you don’t get to make fun of me!”

But Jesse knew that light in Fareeha’s eyes, and Hanzo was already looking curiously between the two of them. “I don’t think I knew you were actually a member of the Watch.”

“Oh, yeah. He was in the bad habit of relying on stealth to get the drop on people and winning fights that way, but all recruits were required to train to basic mastery of certain weapons and stances. It made it so that anyone who got separated on missions could hold their own until the rest of the strike team got to their position. Jesse  _ hated _ it  he was so scrawny when he showed up, I thought he was a full elf too! It took forever for the strength training to have any effect.”

“Were you a member as well?”

Fareeha waved him off. “No, I was too young. I’m still technically below the allowed recruitment age for elves, but old enough to pick up a weapon out in the real world, you know? But I split my time between my parents - most hunting and harvest seasons with my dad, the rest with my mom for arcane schooling since the Watch had the best resources for that. So I used to fill in whenever they needed someone extra for partnered training, even though I wasn’t a full adult yet. Managed to hold my own pretty well.”

“At least  _ I _ was an adult.”

“Not by elven standards,” Fareeha pointed out. “You were even younger than me, so to Mom, you were practically a baby. A baby with a crossbow. You were one of her favorite topics of conversation for a while; I’m  _ definitely _ allowed to talk about it.” 

And gods, Jesse hadn’t missed that — it was half of why he’d initially left his mother’s people in the first place, tired of being treated as too young to contribute when he could manage on his own just fine — but the memories it brought back had at least dulled to a bittersweet tinge instead of being outright painful.

Besides, at least it had brought Hanzo back down to being relaxed instead of defensive over their inadvertent prying into his own past. The stiffness that had settled over his shoulders at the first mention of his magic had almost entirely vanished, and he was now watching the two of them bicker with open amusement.

“So you’ve always preferred the crossbow? And the glaive is an...interesting choice.”

“Easy enough to block anyone trying to get all the way back to him, and I’m not weighed down by a shield. Once I got this—” Fareeha tapped a finger on her cheek, just below the curling loop of her tattoo. “Well. Didn’t need a shield to focus my spells with my holy symbol right there. Picked up a polearm out of familiarity, since it was what the Watch drilled with, and never looked back.”

Jesse snorted. “You just hated having to juggle a sword and shield to get a free hand to cast a spell, don’t lie. Never got the hang of it, either.”

“That too,” Fareeha admitted. “But it’s for the best. It means I can never put my emblem away like I could when it was only on a shield. Keeps me honest, doing what I promised to in my oath.”

“Admirable.” Hanzo tugged his left sleeve up to expose the yawning maw on his wrist that Jesse had glimpsed before. “This one is purely decorative, but...it does remind me what’s important.”

“The Platinum Dragon,” Fareeha murmured approvingly. “A worthy god to follow, to be sure. Gabriel used to tell a fair few stories of him when I was younger. My favorite ones to hear were those where he came to our plane as an old man to judge whether the mortals he met were of worthy heart. I used to ask Gabriel if he was Bahamut — humans age so quickly, he looked much older than any of the elves I knew. Took me forever to realize why he looked so exasperated every time I asked.”

Hanzo smiled. “Those were my favorites as well. One of the few stories my brother and I could agree on.”

“I very nearly chose to enter his service, when I first decided the course of my training,” Fareeha sounded wistful, even if Jesse knew she never truly regretted the path she followed. “A number of the Watch were bound to him — you can imagine how merciful justice might be a popular ideal after so much destruction during the war. But then the Watch fell, and vigilance and protection became more important in the grand scheme of things, and so here I am with Helm’s blessing instead.”

And, of course,  _ that _ launched them right into a detailed discussion of the finer points of overlap between their respective deities. Not that he didn’t know his fair share about Helm, after all this time. While Jesse had never been one to have much interest in the gods, seeing Fareeha clad in holy armor when she tracked him down after the Fall hadn’t surprised him in the least. 

The Watch shaped him, sure, taught him what was worth putting his life on the line for: but Fareeha grew up on its ideals of protection and justice, absorbed the tireless dedication of its leaders into her own determined core until she grew into a warrior anyone would be proud to fight alongside. It was only a shame that the Watch didn’t survive long enough for her to take her rightful place among its ranks. 

Gods, Jesse had no need for. But Fareeha, who dug him out of the misery he’d fallen into after losing everything? She was worth following. For all the petty rivalries that cropped up along the way, Jesse counted himself lucky that she saw fit to let him come along. 

If Hanzo was half as dedicated to his own god, Jesse had a good feeling about their chances.

 

* * *

 

Jesse woke on a scream, muffled only by the fist reflexively shoved into his mouth. Not the first time he’d had to wake quietly from dreams of the Fall, and it wouldn’t be the last. 

Wasn’t even too surprising that they’d struck tonight, only half a day away from arriving at Meridian. He could only hope tracking down Lena was worth the memories it brought up. He glanced across the fire, hoping to see Fareeha’s familiar profile silhouetted by the flickering light, but instead found Hanzo studiously looking anywhere but his direction.

At least he was courteous.

No use in staying put in his bedroll — Jesse knew the sharp pains in a hand that wasn’t there wouldn’t let him return to sleep anytime soon. He might as well make himself useful, he figured, and levered himself upright to pad softly over to the rock Hanzo was perched on. “I can take watch, if you’d like to get back to sleep,” he offered.

“No offense meant,” Hanzo began, and Jesse’s body went taut in anticipation of the offense that was sure to follow. “But you don’t appear to be in the right mindset for spotting danger. You’re welcome to sit with me, but I’ll finish my watch.”

“Thought you might like the extra sleep, but suit yourself.” He never remembered exactly how much sleep humans needed, but he’d always figured that accounted for how prickly some of the Watch got when on longer hunting missions. Still, he accepted the invitation for the offer of non-judgmental company that it was, and settled in on a log with decent sightlines over the valley Meridian sat atop. 

“I’d say I enjoy the quiet, but that would only summon something intent on attacking us.” Faint amusement colored Hanzo’s voice. “In any case, I’m accustomed to getting by on little sleep. Being pursued isn’t a very restful lifestyle.”

Jesse shot a glance at Hanzo, trying to hide his interest. He suspected he might be failing. “You an outlaw too?”

“Not as such. My family’s word might be law in our city, but it isn’t legally binding outside of it.”

“And what city might that be?” Jesse’d heard of a fair few cities with ruling families, but none publicizing a missing heir. 

Hanzo tilted a suspicious glance at him. “Why? Are you planning to turn me in? The city does not matter. It’s far enough north of here that you’d likely never have reason to travel there.”

Jesse shrugged. “Fair enough.” He could appreciate a healthy amount of paranoia if Hanzo really was in danger of being pursued like he said. “Didn’t mean to pry.”

Hanzo’s shoulders relaxed slightly from where they’d been held tense. “And I should not have suspected the worst,” he admitted reluctantly. “Even if it’s only by reflex — the two of you have been better to me than I expected. I have not traveled with anyone else before, and now that I’ve already needed to have one limb regenerated as a result of my family’s long reach, I’ve become...more cautious than I would prefer.”

“Regenerated? Came clean off?” 

“Not so much  _ clean _ , but yes.”

Jesse wrapped both arms around himself, pretending it was the chill so he didn’t have to catch a glance at the abrupt end to his forearm out of the corner of his eye. “Hell of a thing. Mind if I ask…”

“A dragon bit my leg off,” Hanzo deadpanned.

“Alright, if you didn’t want to say, you could’ve just said so,” Jesse said defensively. 

“And you?”

“This is me saying so.” Jesse’s voice came out tighter than he’d like, but all Hanzo did was nod his quiet acceptance and turn back to watching the perimeter. 

The muffled sounds of the forest hung heavy between them for a few long moments until Hanzo finally broke the silence again. “Will you tell me about Agent Tracer? Everyone knew the public persona, but I imagine you know more than that.” 

Jesse could recognize a peace offering when he heard one, but he supposed it was better than pointlessly lingering over his reasons for being awake. Might be a good idea to remind himself of the reasons he  _ was _ looking forward to seeing her again, after all — she’d been a friend to him and just about everyone else, someone he could rely on even in the farthest-flung reaches of the map. 

“Might as well. You know, everyone always thought she joined up by stumbling onto a purple worm hunt led by Morrison, but it was actually Fareeha’s mom that recruited her? Never let anyone else forget it, either,  _ especially _ after Lena became everyone’s favorite.”

Turned out Hanzo was the best kind of listener, genuinely attentive even if he was likely only asking for Jesse’s benefit, nodding in all the right places and indulging even the most outrageous of Jesse’s exaggerations. The time for Jesse to take over the watch had long since passed by the time he realized it and sent Hanzo back to his bedroll.

Meridian didn’t loom quite so large on the horizon, after that.

 

* * *

 

“Don’t like this,” Jesse repeated, eyeing the city gate and the guards flanking it with suspicion. A quick tug of his cloak over his left shoulder to hide the stump of his arm alleviated some of his worries, but not enough to make him feel safe. 

“You don’t have to.” Fareeha sounded matter-of-fact as ever, even if it wasn’t the most comforting thing to hear when all he wanted to do was run in the other direction. “If Gabriel made sure to clear up the issue with your bounty, you don’t need to keep worrying about it. You know he never did anything by half measures.”

True enough, even if Jesse didn’t love the idea of relying on the word of a years-dead organization to keep him from seeing the wrong side of a jail cell. The idea of the fuss that would be sure to follow if anyone tried to push the issue of his old bounty was enough to make Jesse wish he owned one of the fancy masks the Watch kept on hand whenever their operatives needed a new face for a mission.

“You’re not going to leave me and Hanzo to track down Lena alone, are you?” she challenged, throwing a smirk over her shoulder as she headed for the gate in the distance. After a moment's hesitation, Hanzo followed along, shooting one last curious glance over his shoulder as he went.

Sucking his breath in through his teeth, Jesse attempted to steel his nerves. With any luck, the growing unease over the recent attacks would overshadow any concern about an unobtrusive stranger passing through. That had certainly been the case for the last few towns he'd chanced.

None of those had been the capital, though. Jesse firmly pushed that thought from his mind, tugged his cloak even further around himself, and jogged ahead to catch up with Fareeha and Hanzo. Walking in separately would certainly draw more attention to him than approaching with company. Besides, dusk drew closer with every passing minute, and the gates would close not long after that. No time to dawdle.

Sure enough, the guards posted by the gate barely gave their small group a second glance, more preoccupied with inspecting a few packed carts belonging to merchants impatient to bring their goods into the city walls to sell. The weight of the guards’ brief once-over burned into the back of Jesse’s neck even as they passed, but the three of them slipped through unaccosted, sticking close together as they continued along the main route.

“We need to find a place to stay before we do anything else,” Hanzo said as they ambled along with the throngs of people heading for the market. “Talking to people over a hot meal may be the most efficient way of finding where Tracer lives.”

Fareeha hummed in agreement. “Here’s hoping they’ll be able to point us in the right direction.”

“You do remember Lena, right? Chatty as she is, I’m sure most folks will be able to point us towards her,” Jesse pointed out. “Think it’ll be a matter of whether they’re willing to pass that along to strangers claiming to be old friends.”

The first seller they asked at the marketplace suggested a few inns quieter and less in demand than the one overlooking the bustling stalls. The first of those that they came across looked clean enough at a glance — although that wasn’t something Jesse tended to worry about, he knew Fareeha preferred at least an attempt at keeping the place tidy, and figured that Hanzo might need a break after weeks of sleeping rough outdoors — so Jesse willingly parted with enough coin to secure them two rooms for the night, with an assurance that they could extend their stay if they needed. 

“Here’s the keys for your rooms,” she said cheerfully, setting them on the counter. “Sign the log if you like, but you’re all set for your stay.”

Before Jesse or Fareeha could graciously decline putting their names to paper, Hanzo stepped up to the desk and picked up the quill, signing confidently before accepting the keys. “Hanzo,” Fareeha hissed warningly, shooting a worried look at Jesse.

But when Hanzo set the quill back down, all Jesse saw was lavishly inscribed script that had to be his name, followed by a plain but neat addendum of  _ and attendants _ . Although Jesse’s pride rankled at being recorded as a member of Hanzo’s staff, he had to admit it was an artful way of dodging any suspicion aimed at their little group.

Hanzo looked up at the innkeeper as he stepped away from the book. “I’m in the city on business matters — here to meet with Lena Oxton, formerly of the Watch. Do you know where I might find her?”

The innkeeper scrutinized Hanzo closely, and Jesse thought for a moment that his finery and regal composure was sure to convince her to part with the information. But— “I don’t have much time for affairs outside the inn,” she declined with a politely strained smile, “so I’m afraid I can’t be of much help to you.”

“It’s important business,” Fareeha chimed in, firm but insistent. “Do you happen to know who might be able to point us in the right direction?”

The veneer of politeness faltered as the innkeeper’s tone turned frosty. “Don’t believe I do, no. And I’ve got other customers that need my attention, so best you head up to your rooms.”

“We’ll do that,” Jesse said from the back of their little group. He tugged discreetly on Fareeha and Hanzo’s wrists, drawing them away from the counter and towards the sturdy stairs that wound their way to the rooms upstairs. “Thanks for the accommodations!”

“You aren’t just going to—”

“Gonna wait til late tonight, then head down and see if someone else is a bit more forthcoming,” Jesse said in a low voice as they ascended the stairs. “Worst case, we have to ask around the markets tomorrow. Not worth getting ourselves kicked out over. Now,  _ my lord _ , I think you’re in that one over there.”

Hanzo’s mouth twisted in displeasure as he handed over the key to the double-occupancy room. “Will you come fetch me for your next attempt?”

“Don’t worry about it. Feel free to rest up — think that’s up next for me, actually.”

True to his word, Jesse fell asleep not long after he crawled onto the bed closest to the door, a product of unpredictable sleeping habits during his years as an agent. Couldn’t guarantee he’d stay asleep anymore, given the unpleasant dreams that cropped up more often than he’d like, but falling asleep whenever a good opportunity presented itself? Still second nature.

The rhythmic scratching of a pen on paper woke him some time later. Jesse echoed the bedsprings’ faint groan as he rolled out of bed and ran his fingers through his hair to try and return it to some semblance of order. “Figure the innkeeper will be done for the night?”

“Heard the kitchen just close, so probably.” Fareeha didn’t break her concentration on the leather-bound journal that sat in her lap, pages open to a painstakingly-constructed web of connections. As Jesse watched, she scrawled a footnote along the bottom of the page. “Do you think Lena will turn up anything useful?”

“I’d hope so, considering how long it took us to get here. You having second thoughts?”

Fareeha shrugged. “Not really. Just not sure if she’ll know much we don’t already know. If Gabriel was up to something back then, I’d think you of all people would be one of the first to know something was wrong, and the only one left alive. Lena didn’t work with him nearly as closely as you did.”

“Maybe not as closely, but we worked with him on different things.” Jesse’d had the same thought, but before they started really digging into what goals Talon and Gabriel had that might overlap and convince him to join, he’d rather be prepared with as much information as possible. Lena seemed as promising a source as any. “There might’ve been official business that I wasn’t cleared to know. I still think it’s our best lead so far.”

“It probably is. I just wish we had something more solid to go on.” 

There was a morose note to Fareeha’s voice that Jesse didn’t like hearing, and when he sent a concerned glance her way, he found her lingering over a different page of the journal. The narrow beds were close enough that he caught a glimpse of Elvish script among lines and lines of common letters. Ashamed, Jesse quickly looked away — he hadn’t had much use for Elvish in years, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t guess who it referred to.

“Hard to believe there’s so few of them left that Lena’s essentially our only option,” she murmured.

From what Jesse had seen in the time since Fareeha found him again, she didn’t often get melancholy over her mother; but no wonder it struck now, when they were about to revisit the history of the organization that Ana poured so much of her life into. That just wouldn’t stand.

Fareeha didn’t resist when Jesse pulled her into a careful hug, only set the journal aside and leaned fully into the embrace, giving it her all just like she did everything else. “Can’t believe it either,” Jesse said quietly.

“I think she’d approve of what we’re doing, though. They looked out for us, and now we’re trying to do the same for one of them.”

“Probably approve of us sticking together for the same reason. Me looking out for you, and all that.”

That got a laugh out of her as she shoved him lightly away. “Sure,  _ I’m _ the one that needs taking care of. That’s why I had full run of the Watch base as a kid while you weren’t allowed to leave the barracks without supervision for a year, right?”

“Hey, they had no idea if I was planning to run back to the same pack of highway bandits they dragged me in from! I earned that house arrest, thanks,” Jesse protested. He straightened, turning to grab his pouch of coin from his pack as Fareeha closed her journal and put it away. “Speaking of, better see if I can find some other disreputable types that might have a clue about the palace district.”

“I’ll come down too,” Fareeha said, standing from her cross-legged seat on the bed. “It’ll go faster with both of us asking around.”

Hand already on the doorknob, Jesse paused, his protest dying on the tip of his tongue as he considered whether he should say it or not. Evidently his hesitation was apparent, as Fareeha’s face dropped. “It’s not your fault or anything,” he said hastily, well aware of how much she hated to be left out of the action. “But if they weren’t gonna tell you when you asked upfront, wearing your holy armor and all, those folks aren’t gonna tell anyone legitimately asking. I’m hoping the sort that show up for a drink at midnight are the kind that might let slip with coin to jog their memory, but you’re gonna look out of place in that kind of exchange.”

“Fine. Don’t spend too much — if we need to, we can go further out into town to ask,” Fareeha replied, sounding only a little resigned as she settled back against the headboard. 

Jesse snapped off a quick salute and hustled off before she could throw a pillow at him for it. The hallway was dimmer than when they originally came up to their rooms, and Jesse picked his way carefully down the stairs, not wanting to ruin his chance at information by tripping into the tavern. His focus shifted from the stairs to the person standing at the foot of them when he was about halfway down, and Jesse slowed, surprised to see Hanzo downstairs again.

Judging by the way his eyes darted back and forth as if trapped, Hanzo was surprised to see him too. “Hello,” he said, voice carefully neutral.

“Hey there.” Jesse couldn’t help the amusement that crept into his voice as he looked Hanzo up and down. “Didn’t get enough at dinner, did you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

“You’ve, uh—” Jesse gestured to his own chin. “Got some crumbs in your beard.”

Caught out, Hanzo flushed red. “What are you doing down here again, anyway? I thought you and Fareeha were discussing our approach to Ms. Oxton.”

“She’ll just tell you to call her Lena, you know,” Jesse said, still amused. “And we need to figure out how to find her first before we get to talk to her. I’m trying my luck again. Willing to bet someone around here has heard enough about what she’s up to now to be useful.”

“I’ll leave you to it, then.” Hanzo still refused to make eye contact, just bid him a terse goodnight and marched up the stairs. Amused, Jesse watched him draw a small cloth bundle from where he’d tried to hold it unobtrusively at his side, clutching it protectively in front of him as he withdrew upstairs to the privacy of his room. Funny fella — if he’d just said he was still hungry after their quick meal before approaching the gates, they could’ve portioned out more food, especially with the city’s markets right at hand to restock. He didn’t know where Hanzo fit it all sometimes.

Still, Jesse thought he might finally be warming to the man. Seeing Hanzo off-balance in the social workings of the city reminded Jesse he was flawed as anyone else. Odd that he appeared more composed out on the road and acted less at ease in actual civilization, but Jesse supposed that was true for himself as well. 

He shrugged off Hanzo’s uneasy demeanor and headed straight for the bar, where a halfling sat perched on a stool behind the counter, wiping disinterestedly at a heavy glass stein. “You one of the ones I’m supposed to be looking out for?” the man asked as he approached.

Jesse faltered for only a second, then took a seat at the bar anyway. “We’re just here for a quiet night of rest, is all. Not sure that we’ve done anything to deserve being looked after.”

“Oh, trust me, I’m not one to judge, even if you did get on our dear proprietor’s bad side for being nosy. I  _ like _ nosy. Tends to be profitable for people like me who have a lot of answers.”

With a faint sigh, Jesse slid some coin across the bar, glad he’d at least prepared for that possibility. The coin vanished quick as it came, and a glass took its place. “Your answers include where we can go to speak with Lena Oxton?”

The halfling hummed and sat the last of the clean glasses aside. “Last I heard, she was advising the government council on security matters. Got a nice house by the palace for her troubles and everything,” he confided. 

“Thanks for the help.” Jesse added another coin to the tip sitting in front of his drink. “Guess we’ll be stopping by first thing tomorrow for a visit, then.”

The abrupt cackle caught him off guard, and Jesse’s hand hesitated over the coin. “Not looking like that, you won’t. Your lord might just be rich enough to belong there, I’ll grant you that, but no guard’s going to let you into the palace district with a speck of road dirt on you.”

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a bath here?” Jesse asked flatly.

“Turns out we don’t. Proprietor’s sister owns the bath house a couple doors down. ” The barman cast a sneering glance at the sweat-stained shirt his armor normally covered. “Might want to find a laundry as well, friend.”

“Yeah, yeah, thanks for the tip.” Jesse slung the cheap whiskey down his throat and shoved off of the stool, irritated at the extra expense they’d have to shell out to line a family member’s pockets.

“Could say the same to you!”

Jesse’s footfalls must’ve been heavier than he meant due to the unwelcome news: Fareeha was already looking quizzically at the door as he entered. “What’s got you all twisted up?”

“Gonna have to get cleaned up tomorrow before we pay Lena a visit.” At least it shouldn’t cut too far into their funds, even at city prices. “But I did find out where she lives.”

“So we can go directly there afterwards. Not a big deal.”

“You sure you can’t just, uh—” Jesse wiggled his fingers, unsure how to describe it. “Do your thing?”

Rolling her eyes, Fareeha stood from her bed and crouched to rummage through her pack. “That’s  _ not _ how it works. You should try listening to me one of the times I explain it; you might learn something.”

On the contrary, at the bath house the following morning, Jesse found himself glad he never had learned anything about magic. Bad enough that they had to pay for a tub of heated water to share — the same that usually came included in the cost of a half-decent inn anywhere else — but they also had to walk past the enormous communal pools filled with scented soaps in order to get to the small room they’d been shown into. Stripping down to their smalls only to be presented with a ladle each and a basin narrow enough that he doubted any one of them could even fit inside seemed rather disappointing after that, even if it did reveal the full extent of the tattoo snaking down Hanzo’s left arm. Impressive bit of work — nearly as impressive as the muscles the ink covered.

At least he got the first crack at the hot water while Fareeha and Hanzo busied themselves with spelling their clothes clean. Despite the coin they’d had to hand over to enter, Jesse found himself warming to the expense. Probably due to the hot water warming  _ him _ after too many dips in cold streams since the last time he had a proper bath indoors, but he wasn’t likely to admit to it anytime soon.

“You could stand to look a little less relaxed, Jesse.”

“Magic just isn’t my thing, you know that,” Jesse said loftily. When he reemerged from the stream of water poured over his head, he found Fareeha rolling her eyes at him as she set the last of the clothes aside.

Hanzo, on the other hand, was looking at Jesse with a curious expression on his face. "I didn’t realize you had elven ancestry.”

Ah. Jesse’s hand went to the side of his head, where his hair slicked back from the water to reveal pointed ears. He had honestly forgotten Hanzo didn’t know, but he supposed it spoke well of his ability to conceal his heritage that a human in such close company hadn’t guessed at the truth. “That’s intentional.” He shrugged, unbothered. “And  _ ancestry _ is a weak word for my mama.” 

“Why do you hide it?”

There was no malice to Hanzo’s voice, only more curiosity. Maybe it really was something he never ran into, tucked up away in his lord’s castle. Jesse found he didn’t mind talking about it when there wasn’t judgment waiting on the other end of the conversation. “Ran into some shit for it from humans in the past. No way I could pass for a full elf, but between growing a beard and leaving my hair long, nobody thinks I’m anything other than full human. Makes things easier, at times.”

A furrow grew between Hanzo’s brows as Jesse spoke. Seemed he was right about being sheltered by the nobility. “Are humans truly so terrible?”

“Well, maybe not all of them,” Jesse said with a pointed wink. 

Hanzo’s cheeks, already faintly flushed from the steam lingering in the room, turned a darker red at the gesture. Any further thoughts Jesse might’ve had about that vanished under the wave of water from an outraged Fareeha that he failed to dodge in time. 

“Missed a spot,” she said cheerfully, unbothered by his spluttering.

In the end, their admittance into the palace district went more smoothly than any of them anticipated; once cleaned of the last visible traces of their time on the road, Hanzo looked every bit the lord he said he was. A brief cordial exchange with the guards stationed at the entrance allowed them through with a more specific set of directions to guide them towards their destination.

Lena’s house was indeed right near the palace. Tucked between two shops on the main thoroughfare, the tall yellow house looked well-kept and tidy — hardly any sign Lena had ever blown through the place. 

But when Fareeha led the charge in knocking on the door, it opened to an unfamiliar face. Where Fareeha and Jesse had looked down, anticipating someone much shorter, a tall, copper-colored tiefling peered out from the doorway. She looked just about as confused as they did. “Can I help you?”

Fareeha faltered, her eyes darting back to catch Jesse’s, but the tiefling’s melodic voice caught his attention. “You Emily, by any chance?” he asked.

“I am. And you are?”

“Name’s Jesse,” he said, offering his hand. “I used to work with Lena — don’t know if you recall, but I think we met once or twice when you visited her? Sorry, I think I’ve heard loads more about you than you’d have heard about me, if we’re being honest.”

Emily’s face brightened, and she shook his hand with more enthusiasm than he would’ve thought for an old work friend of her partner’s. “No, no, I remember you! My apologies, it’s been long enough since anyone’s come to visit her from that time that I wasn’t thinking that far back. I’m glad you’ve come by — please, come in and get comfortable.”

The parlor she shooed them into was just as neatly kept as the outside of the house, but lived-in and cozy. Once the introductions were out of the way, Emily left them with the promise of tea and returned a few minutes later with a heaping platter that made Jesse’s mouth water just to see it. The choice between baked goods proved too much for any of them to bear, and Jesse was relieved he wasn’t the only one with a plate that bore more than a solitary scone or tart. Funny, that he’d forgotten all about Lena’s sweet tooth, but he was more than amused to see that she’d only gotten worse in her own home.

“Lena had to pop over to the barracks, I’m afraid,” Emily said, stirring her own tea, “but she’s been gone for two hours already, so I can’t imagine she’ll be long. I’ve sent a message telling her she has visitors, but I have no idea if she can leave right away. As many times as I’ve told her, she can never quite remember that she can just  _ tell _ me she got it.”

Jesse saw the corner of Hanzo’s mouth twitch before he took a sip out of the delicate cup to hide it. Seemed nobody was immune to Emily’s charm, just as Lena always claimed.

An innocent question about Emily’s position as arcane advisor led to both Fareeha and Hanzo getting deep into a conversation about magical theory that Jesse didn’t care to follow, but he kept himself quietly content with his tea and pastries. Nothing like moving around from one backwater town to another for years to make him appreciate the finer trappings available in the capital. 

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Emily said after a pause, bringing his attention back to her. “It’s been a difficult few weeks. Lena came back from a routine visit to check on one of the old bases and has been —  _ off _ ever since. Here’s hoping a visit from old friends will help, because I can’t think of anything else to try.”

The turn of a key in the latch broke them out of their conversation what felt like only a few minutes later. Jesse was surprised to see that almost a full hour had passed since their arrival, they’d been so caught up in Emily’s charming company, but as pleasant as it was, he was still relieved to see Lena appear in the doorway. He was anxious to hear what she had to say.

Sure enough, his initial thought had been correct; as soon as Lena recognized him, she bounded towards him for a rib-creaking hug. He’d never thought of halflings as particularly heavy, given their size, but having one locked around his midsection made him reconsider.

“Jesse McCree, what in the realms brings you here?” she asked with a laugh as she let him go. “Haven’t seen your face in  _ ages _ !”

“Wish we were here for a more pleasant reason, but it’s good to see you.”

“Well,  _ that _ sounds serious. Fill me in?” Lena sank into the seat next to Emily, expression turning curious. It remained that way as Fareeha took the lead in explaining their meeting with Reinhardt and sobered when she mentioned who’d attacked him. Gabriel mentored his fair share of agents, and she seemed just as dismayed to hear of his current activities as Jesse and Fareeha were. 

She stayed quiet for a long minute after Fareeha finished, staring thoughtfully into her drink. 

“You remember Winston, right?”

Apparently Jesse was no longer as adept at controlling his expressions as he’d been during his time at the Watch — Lena laughed, high and bright, at the face he made. “Yeah, I guess the big guy’s hard to miss, isn’t he? Well, he hopped a teleportation circle over here not too long ago, all shaken up. Said Talon had gotten past all the old watchpoint defenses without any trouble and nearly killed him.”

“Led by a new agent, I assume?” Fareeha asked.

Lena nodded. “I’d heard a few reports of Reaper before — rumors, more like — but they involved stealing powerful artifacts, typical Talon stuff. Even if they’re the worst of the cults out there right now, they’ve never been linked to any targeted attacks like this before. Winston’s the only one left at that watchpoint, the  _ only _ possible target, and he said they acted like they wanted him dead. A week later, former agents started dying. Winston didn’t realize how lucky he was to make it out alive until we put together that Reaper was actually Gabriel. He never was one to let a mission get away from him, even if we had no idea why he’d go after Winston of all people.”

“So you think they’re focusing on eliminating anyone left from the Watch? Not stealing anything anymore?”

“Oh, they’re absolutely still going after relics, the darker the better. But they’re expanding in a way they haven’t before.” Lena sighed. “Winston and I fought a bit — he thinks they’re just trying to get rid of anyone who represents the old Watch, but I thought they might’ve been after one of the artifacts he keeps in his lab. Once we heard others had been killed, I realized that was just wishful thinking.”

“I don’t think anyone would blame you for wanting that to be the case,” Fareeha said, subdued.

“So we started tracking down any remaining agents we could find — they deserved to get to safety, especially if they had no idea they were at risk. Wasn’t easy, but we were working through the list until a threat to the palace came up. Most likely it wasn’t Talon, but it was serious enough I had to come back here to take care of it, and — well, you know Winston can’t keep on following leads on his own.”

Yeah, he could imagine how uncooperative people might be when asked for directions by a bugbear. But — “How did you even find out where any of the former agents are? Those records and all personal items went up in flames during the Fall. I can’t imagine it’d be easy to even scry on them, let alone physically track them down.” 

Lena shifted uneasily. “You ever heard of the Sombra Collective?”

Jesse swore, while Fareeha and Hanzo looked between the two of them in confusion. “I was never assigned to monitor them, but last I heard, they’re tangled up in some nasty business.”

“Nobody can get enough information on them to know either way, frankly. And trust me, I’ve got all the resources working palace security gets me — still nothing. I’ve been cautious, but they haven’t steered me wrong so far, and I don’t really have any other alternatives. I  _ have _ to use the resources I have. I won’t let any more good agents get killed.” The jut of Lena’s chin looked as determined as she ever had on a mission.

“What if we finish up your list?” Fareeha asked. When Jesse and Hanzo turned to look incredulously at her, she said, “We’re trying to find Ga — Reaper, and if he’s targeting former agents, that might be our best bet of tracking him down.”

It made sense, and might be their best lead, but Jesse’d been hoping to avoid running into Reaper at his most murderous. He’d seen Gabriel in a fight too many times to count, and it had  _ never _ gone well for anyone in his way.

“Seems like the best option, it really does,” Lena said. It occurred to Jesse that he’d never seen Lena outright nervous before. “But I can’t just hand it over — I don’t want to get on the Collective’s bad side, and neither do you. Can you wait around for a bit, just until I hear back on whether I’m allowed to give you the list?”

Fareeha and Hanzo looked at each other for a moment, both looking unwilling to say anything, until Fareeha finally broke the stalemate. “Just what kind of a list is it, that you think they’d find out if you gave it to us?”

Lena chirped out a sharp laugh. “They can scry on anyone, anywhere, no matter how much warding is around them, as long as you’ve got the coin to make it worth their while. That’s how they operate. If that list winds up in your possession? Trust me, they’ll find out.”

Together, they composed a message on the sending scroll Lena had been given to communicate with the Collective — Lena had a feeling of what kind of approach would make the Collective most likely to respond positively, while Hanzo insisted on using certain language to avoid being trapped into owing any favors to nebulous powers. Jesse and Fareeha mostly just sat back and watched, occasionally chiming in but happy to let the others handle the fine details that they were more accustomed to.

For all Lena spoke of the Collective’s all-powerful knowledge, it still took three days to get a response. Three days of bunking in Lena and Emily’s spare room to avoid spending more coin on lodging, with all of them becoming more restless with each passing day. Even in the lap of luxury, Jesse was more than ready to get moving again whenever they got a response.

Their answer finally came in the form of a messily scrawled  _ This should be interesting. _

Not even an hour later, with all their belongings hastily stowed back in their bags and goodbyes taken care of, they emerged into the late morning light.

“One last order of business before we can leave,” Jesse said, leading the way around the corner and towards the marketplace. 

“I thought meeting with Lena was our only business.”

“It was, until Jesse and I found out you don’t wear armor under your clothes,” Fareeha said. “I don’t know how you’ve survived this long without it, but you’re getting some before we leave. From the sound of what Lena said, you’ll be needing it.”

“How do you expect me to draw accurately if I’m weighed down by—” Hanzo began hotly, before the creak of the opening door drowned out his protests. 

The shop was just as suited to their needs as Jesse had hoped from his initial sighting; the armor inside ranged in quality and price, but all of it boasted one enchantment or another, making it worth the trek out of their way instead of stopping in to any corner blacksmith. 

The suspicious looks Hanzo cast at every piece of armor they looked at continued until the clerk sent him to the back with the lightest item in the store. When he reemerged, he rolled his shoulders experimentally as if searching one last time for a fault. “This would be suitable,” he admitted.

“Can barely see it under the silk, if it makes you feel better,” Jesse said cheerfully, relieved he’d found something to fit. Seemed they’d been right to wait until the last minute to spring this on Hanzo. He and Fareeha had almost taken him shopping while waiting around, but figured the ambush approach would add some urgency to picking out armor without much fuss.

“If it was bulky enough to be noticeable, it would be enough to affect my aim.”

“Saying you can’t adapt in a fight, are you?”

“The bandits who tried to swarm us last week would beg to differ,” Hanzo shot back, moving towards the front to pay. “The ones I prevented from hacking you to pieces when they jumped us in the middle of the road? Those dead bandits?”

Jesse laughed, delighted at the sudden bite, and Fareeha rolled her eyes at both of them. “We all know you’re good in a fight,” she said. “But the armor will make you better, once you’re worrying less about getting hit by everything that comes flying your way, and trust me, you’ll be glad for the enchantments. I could never go back to regular armor after having mine spelled.”

“Might as well go all out on your protective gear,” Jesse agreed. “Spending coin on other stuff doesn’t matter if you’re too dead to use it. Besides, we’d rather you stick around a while.”

Hanzo hummed noncommittally, as if still barely convinced, but the armor stayed on as they walked out the gates of Meridian.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Bevacar's art for the intro scene](https://66.media.tumblr.com/2624f529f7e46a467091ab3854de6b20/tumblr_inline_ppm5x0e6km1wsypsg_1280.png)
> 
> [Dragoonslinger's art for the late-night conversation](https://66.media.tumblr.com/72bb70c1dd374580a706296efd39ff67/tumblr_ppo4tdV61Y1xwobbso3_1280.png)


	2. Chapter 2

The city left them too damn careless. Jesse’s crossbow stayed snug in its holster as they ventured out onto the road leaving the capital, rendered unnecessary by the guards posted every mile as they passed by acres of farmland. By the time they settled down to camp for the night, Jesse portioning out slices of Emily’s poppyseed cake for everyone while Fareeha studied the map and Hanzo fetched water, having a weapon close at hand became another necessity temporarily forgotten in the wake of a few days spent in civilization. 

Until the screech came. Jesse swore as he fumbled with the straps tethering his crossbow to his hip, finally freeing it and setting off like a shot, trying to secure it to his stump even as he dodged roots jutting out from the soil all the way down the gentle slope to the river. All he could see of the source of the screeching was something too quick to track, flitting around Hanzo’s head. Jesse’s heart jumped to his throat to see Hanzo sprawled on his back with his waterskin spilled across the rocks, and sprinted forward the last several yards.

In front of him, he saw Fareeha slide to a sudden halt and fling an arm out as he drew even with her. “Wait, stop!”

Confused, Jesse darted a glance towards her, saw her lowering her glaive with her head cocked to the side, and looked back. With Fareeha drawing his attention to it, he realized whatever it was circling dizzyingly around Hanzo’s head wasn’t attacking him. Hanzo looked alarmed, sure, but it seemed to be due to seeing both of them with weapons aimed at him rather than the creatures, the one cradled protectively against his chest an exact match for the one in flight.

Face heating at his unneeded worry, Jesse hastily lowered his crossbow. “What in the hells are those?” he demanded.

Hanzo’s grip on the shining creature in his arms only tightened. “They’re  _ not _ something for you to shoot!”

“Well, I get that now!” One of the tiny creatures slithered around Hanzo’s neck, tucking its face into the fabric covering his shoulder as if attempting to hide itself. Past Jesse’s first impression, there was clearly nothing threatening about it. The force of his overreaction stung, though at least he hadn’t actually fired at one.

“Calm down, both of you.” Fareeha’s stern tone cut across their heightened emotions. “Hanzo, it’s fine. Everything’s fine. I think we’d both  _ appreciate _ if you came clean about — whatever they are. Are those pseudodragons?”

Hanzo nodded, clutching the tiny dragon in his arms tighter against his chest. “They’re my familiars. It’s been quite some time since we were separated for more than a day, but they had to remain outside the city while we were inside. They were...overexcited, upon seeing me go off alone.”

“So they’ve been, what, hiding nearby this whole time? How come we haven’t seen them until now?”

“Because of precisely  _ that _ .” Hanzo nodded to Jesse’s crossbow, now held at his side but still attached to his arm. “They’ve been with me for decades; I couldn’t bear losing them. It only took one incident in a backwoods village to teach us all caution about letting them be seen outside of certain circles. Sending them to scout the path ahead has always kept me out of trouble and them out of mischief.”

Guiltily, Jesse shoved his crossbow into its holster with more force than needed. “So, those bandits?”

“That was their work, yes.”

Even knowing that, it was all too much at once, seeing them crawl over Hanzo with such familiarity. “I’m going to go for a walk.”

“Jesse, we’ve been walking for half the day,” Fareeha pointed out, eminently reasonable.

“Well, I’m gonna walk some more.”

For all his overblown dramatics, the time alone did wonders for clearing his head of the memories brought to the forefront. Twilight had broken over the shore before Jesse made his way back to the river, legs aching from the hills surrounding the main road. He stopped to refill his canteen before heading back up the bank, returning up the gentle slope that lead to their camp for the night.

After an hour to cool off, Jesse was more embarrassed over his outburst than anything. Couldn’t quite put his finger on why he’d reacted so strongly — being upset at seeing what looked like miniature versions of his nightmares, sure, that made sense. But the initial spike of fear down his spine came from seeing them so close to Hanzo, and as fine a traveling companion as he was, it didn’t make a lick of sense. It wasn’t like they’d been threatening Fareeha. They’d only met Hanzo a little over two weeks prior. 

Seemed like being so isolated for so long, with the sole exception of Fareeha, had warped him in ways he hadn’t realized. He had more than enough bad memories to scare him away from most conflicts, but enough of the protective nature that made him such an asset on Watch missions remained to add Hanzo to the short list of folks he wanted to watch out for anymore. 

Just surprising he’d latched onto Hanzo as someone worth worrying over so soon after meeting him, was all. 

He spotted Fareeha first as he approached camp, sitting upright against a lean sapling. She looked deep in a trance, but Jesse was uncomfortably aware of how likely it was that she would be able to hear any conversation happening around her. Ana’d been the one who first taught him to watch what he said around an apparently-sleeping elf.

Hanzo sat further off, tucked into his bedroll for warmth but facing the road in case of unwanted visitors. It was hard to tell at a distance, but he thought he saw faint movement around him.

As he drew closer, the flickers of movement resolved into the same two draconic forms, draped across Hanzo’s lap and crawling down his shoulder. One spotted his approach and lifted its tufted ears warily. Jesse steeled himself and took a careful seat next to Hanzo, but the tiny familiar continued its path downwards after only a brief pause. 

Jesse stared at the sinuous silvery-blue bodies wrapping delicately around Hanzo’s forearms and swallowed, unable to stop himself from noticing the reptilian stare, the ripple of scales and pinprick claws, even the furled wings tucked safely away while they climbed on their master. One of his teammates back in the Watch had one of the little beasties as a familiar, too, though it hadn’t bothered Jesse at all back then. 

At least the frill set behind their ears looked nothing like the looming horned shape in his memories — although, in all honesty, they looked similar enough to the silver streaks at Hanzo’s temples, if he looked closely. Maybe the resemblance was why he didn’t mind that bit so much. 

“Sorry for acting the way I did earlier,” Jesse said quietly, trying to will himself into seeing something other than a half-remembered threat. 

“You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“Well, it took me too long to do something right. I trust when you say they ain’t gonna hurt us, I do.”

“But?” 

Jesse sighed. “I was there for the Fall, I ever tell you that?” Hanzo’s silence was his answer. “Got luckier than some. I was pinned under rubble for half a day, maybe more — only healer I could find afterwards barely deserved the title. Left me with this,” he said, gesturing with the stump of his left arm. If he was going to admit to this, might as well give Hanzo the full story. After Jesse’s cold reaction earlier, he deserved it. 

“But right after the base collapsed on itself, I saw what caused it. A black dragon, big as they come. Must’ve been ancient. Perched right on top of what used to be the war room when they fought back the constructs,” he said bitterly. “I’ve only told a few folks since it happened, and they didn’t believe me — few enough survived that day, so there was never any mention of it in the official reports of what happened. But I know what I saw. Being trapped like that, with that dragon lording over everything...I thought I’d be dead before long.”

“And seeing them today brought that back,” Hanzo murmured quietly. 

“Walking out only mostly intact didn’t help things. Been a bit touchy about anything that reminds me of that day ever since,” Jesse admitted. “But it ain’t their fault they look like that, and they seem fond enough of you, so I can get used to them.”

Despite his attempt at reassurance, Hanzo looked downright miserable. “If you’d rather, I can send them away again. They have no trouble following out of sight.”

“I can deal, now I know they’re part of the package of traveling with you,” Jesse said, offering up a sincere, if slightly strained smile. “If they’re the ones that have been giving us a heads up this whole time, I’m sure I’ll get used to them quicker than I think.”

Hanzo still looked unsettled, so Jesse added, “Besides, it’s plain to see you’re fond of them, too. I don’t want you missing them on my account. Truly, Hanzo.”

Jesse had always thought humans were easier to read than some races, especially after growing up among full-blooded elves, but he still hadn’t quite figured out what Hanzo was thinking about half the time. The fact that he was being so unguarded with his expression around his familiars spoke volumes about how much they meant to him. No way Jesse was taking that away from him, even if it meant a little discomfort until he got used to seeing them around. 

“You thought they were attacking me, didn’t you?”

Jesse cleared his throat and tilted his hat to hide more of his face. “Might’ve, just for a second. But that was me more than anything — only takes a second to see how comfortable you are with them.” 

The corner of Hanzo’s mouth turned up in a small smile. “They’ve been my companions for a very long time. If not for their warnings, I doubt my travels alone would have gone as smoothly as they have. The human form does have its limitations.”

“When it comes to seeing and hearing danger before it sees you, maybe.” Jesse cast an assessing glance at Hanzo, saw the relaxed look on his face as one of the pseudodragons curled around his neck, nuzzling into his beard. “Other than that, I don’t think anyone would call you limited.”

Hanzo’s hand hesitated over the tiny wing he was stroking, and Jesse watched the conflict play out over his face before he spoke again. “Jesse, I—”

Stinging pain lanced up Jesse’s finger, and he yelped in surprise, yanking his hand close to his chest. The second pseudodragon stared unblinkingly up at him from the ground where his hand had been resting a moment ago, the slitted eyes giving the appearance of being supremely unimpressed by his reaction. 

“I only have the one hand left! Think you could leave it alone?” Jesse scolded, rubbing at the reddened skin. At least it hadn’t broken the surface. 

Even with as little as Jesse knew of Draconic, Hanzo’s hissed words sounded like a warning. The little creature slunk around Jesse’s legs to return to Hanzo’s side, looking suitably chastised. 

“I am  _ so _ sorry — neither of them have been around anyone other than myself in too long, it seems.” Hanzo’s cheeks were flushed a dull red as he glared at his familiar. 

“Speaking of, how come you have two? Didn’t think familiars worked that way.”

Hanzo shrugged. “It’s tradition in my family to make the journey to where the nearest colony roosts when it’s time to take a familiar. Not the most dangerous of journeys, but they hide their presence well, so finding them is the first task. After that, we remain there long enough for them to accept us — it took me almost a week, but longer than that is typical — and once we feel we’ve been successful, we attempt to bond with one. Whatever pseudodragon selects us becomes our familiar, but when I attempted it, another came along.”

“Sounds like you made quite the impression.”

“I’m almost certain I’m only bonded with one, but the twins are so rarely apart that I think when one answered, the other one came along as well. They both seem equally content with our arrangement, at least.”

“Huh. So can you tell them apart?”

“Of course,” Hanzo said, then paused. “Most of the time. They do like to play tricks, and they’ve fooled me before. More than once I’ve thought I was speaking to the one in front of me, when in fact the one I’m bonded to was off harassing the local wildlife.”

That startled a chuckle out of Jesse. “Sounds about like each class of incoming recruits for the Watch. I caused my commanders more than my share of grief before they whipped me into shape.”

“I can imagine.” It sounded fond, not exasperated, and put Jesse at ease to hear it. “There is one particular benefit of having these two around that I believe you’ll appreciate.”

“What’s that?”

Hanzo gestured in front of him, careful not to disturb the dragon resting in his lap. “Now that you both are aware of their existence, they can keep watch for most of the night. They prefer catnaps, so if they can get those with us throughout the day in between scouting, they’re more than capable of alerting me if something threatens us while resting.”

“I don’t know, I don’t mind taking watch. Quiet, usually peaceful, lets me get my thoughts in order.” Jesse tilted a small smile in Hanzo’s direction. “And if there’s company, especially the friendly kind, then all the better.”

One of the pseudodragons butted insistently at Hanzo’s arm. He smoothed a hand over the little creature’s head and returned the smile. “Fortunate for you that  _ company _ feels the same way, then.”

 

* * *

 

True to his word, Hanzo’s familiars saw them safely down the road to the Watch outpost Winston had appropriated for himself. Traveling went faster when they could devote nearly all their downtime to sleeping, rather than having to trade off shifts, putting their arrival an entire day ahead of when they originally thought they’d get there. Shame Lena’d said Winston destroyed the teleportation circle for fear of another ambush, or else the journey could’ve been even easier.

Jesse eyed the run-down building warily. “Sure we shouldn’t keep ourselves busy until morning, at least? If he isn’t expecting us today from Emily’s message, maybe we shouldn’t bother him just yet.”

“It’s just Winston,” Fareeha scoffed, while Hanzo tilted his head and said, “He’s still expecting us to arrive at some point.”

“Easy for you two to say.” He’d never spoken with Winston more than a couple of times in passing, even though they’d had a few mutual friends. Still, he knew he had a knack for becoming thoroughly absorbed in his research. Jesse wasn’t entirely sure that Winston  _ was _ still expecting them.

Overruled, he had no choice but to follow along behind as Fareeha led the charge up to the door. 

Turned out he was right to be concerned about Winston’s absentmindedness. The samples he’d kept from the ambush were at least nominally useful; Winston’s recollection of it much less so.

“This is all they left behind,” he said sheepishly. Glass from a few smashed vials covered the floor, glittering among scattered black dust. “I’ve been so focused on cleaning up my living area that I haven’t gotten to this part of the lab yet.”

“No, this is helpful.” Hanzo crouched down next to Fareeha and joined her in carefully sifting through the mess. When he used a scrap of paper to lift some of the debris up to the light, it looked like the dust itself sparkled in the light.

After finishing up their inspection, it only seemed right to help Winston in returning the rest of the old base to rights. It took a few more hours after that before they headed out again, lab cleaned and stomachs filled with the midday meal Winston insisted on feeding them before they left. Kind of him, even if it sat like a stone in Jesse’s stomach knowing what would come next.

“Ready?” Jesse asked, anxious to at least get the teleportation over with.

Hanzo hesitated. Jesse saw his eyes flit in his direction for a brief second before stowing his bow carefully over one shoulder. “I would like to try something, if neither of you object.”

At their nods, Hanzo stepped closer to Jesse and Fareeha and rested a hand on both their elbows. Jesse’s skin prickled where their skin touched, even before Hanzo began speaking, and soon enough, the same force from the last time plucked him up by the back of the neck and tugged him along with a sharp jerk.

When Jesse’s feet landed on rocky ground a second later, planted wide and braced for impact, he was surprised to find his stomach firmly in place rather than trying to jump up his throat. He took a single step backwards, felt no trace of vertigo, and said, “Huh.”

“You alright?” Fareeha asked, looking worried. She had a hand half-raised, healing magic at the ready.

Jesse cast a glance down himself, just to make sure everything was there and in order. Hard to believe the trip could go so much more smoothly than the last time. “Think so, actually.”

“Better, then?” Hanzo asked.

“ _ Definitely _ .”

Hanzo only nodded, but Jesse managed to catch a glimpse of a small, pleased smile before he hid it from view. 

With teleporting no longer such an ordeal and the Sombra Collective scroll firmly in hand, they began chasing down all the agents they could remember, moving across the continent in the space of the breath—

—to the far-flung capital where Angela now worked to heal all who came to the temple of her god, recounting how she searched and searched for any sign of a body in the rubble and found none.

To Singh, hidden away in the countryside, desperate to escape any and all reminders of the Watch, even the good they’d done.

To Mirembe, who was able to faithfully recall every relevant detail of every mission she’d run with Gabriel.

To Bayless and Al-Farouk, planted side by side in gravesites near the site of their last operation, their support gone dark during the razing of the Watch. Jesse handed the scroll over to Fareeha to use after that, too angry at the lack of forewarning to be sure he wouldn’t drive their only source of information off for good.

To Zhou, who’d been just as absorbed in her work as Winston and admitted to not speaking with Gabriel for more than polite pleasantries.

To Fio, running her own smuggling ring now instead of settling for smuggling strike teams into dangerous territory, who took time for even the Collective to track down. She’d been expecting the group on her trail to be Reaper, back a second time to finish the job, and her information in turn filled in the gaps on a number of missions Jesse had been too busy to know all the details of.

No more than a week or two of travel to each location as they traced some of the same routes, fitting together piecemeal information into Fareeha’s journal with every stop. Absolutely no trace of anything suspect prior to the day headquarters came tumbling down, and with each successive stop, Jesse’s sense of unease grew. There had to be a reason for Gabriel’s shift in loyalties, and if it was as outwardly sudden as he feared it might have been—

Well. Not like he’d been looking forward to finding out that Gabriel had somehow been pursuing dark magic long before the Watch went under, anyway. But if it really had been one singular event that pushed him into taking up Talon’s cause, Jesse wasn’t quite sure he wanted to find out the extent of it.

At least the company kept him from dwelling too long on the potential results of their searches. Having a purpose to their travel instead of wandering aimlessly from one town to the next left Fareeha altogether brighter, clearly relieved to have something to direct her considerable focus towards. Even spending hours poring over the same scraps of mission briefs after yet another interview became almost enjoyable. Jesse could admit it felt good to have something more to work towards than just waiting for the next harvest season to go help Fareeha’s father, feel like they were contributing something useful. Keeping busy with worthy pastimes fell more under Fareeha’s purview than his own, but he was beginning to see the appeal.

And Hanzo — well. It was nice, sitting up with him on watch, even as the shifting of that responsibility primarily to his familiars left each of them with shorter shifts each night. But Jesse found himself staying awake later than he needed to most of the time, needing even a brief conversation with whoever was next on watch to steady his mind and return to rest. Memories of the Watch seemed closer, these days, and not all of its actions had been so noble as freeing an entire continent from the grip of war.

He talked more easily at night, unselfconscious in his pleasantly tired state, and it turned out Hanzo didn’t mind listening. Never said too much about himself, even if Jesse wouldn’t have minded hearing it. He never said too much whenever Jesse took a chance and asked. As time went on, Hanzo figured out what rough edges he should veer a conversation away from, for Fareeha as well as Jesse, and after a few months the two of them could quite remember how they got along without him for so long.

But Hanzo never grew frustrated whenever a lead left them with no new information, never gave any indication he tired of their search. Jesse didn’t know how long they could keep it up, how long it would take until they’d exhausted every last surviving agent, but in the meantime, having the others with him made the wait bearable.

 

* * *

 

“You sure this is where the scroll said to go?”

Sure as he was about the location, Jesse’s hand still twitched towards the scroll at Fareeha’s question. The doorway in front of them certainly looked hidden enough to account for Moira’s disappearance after the Watch fell, overgrown as it was with vines. He doubted it had seen any inhabitants in  _ years _ .

“Sombra said this was her last known location,” he said, suddenly doubting the accuracy of the information. The Collective had shown previously that they had no problem leading them astray while technically fulfilling the letter of their request. Seemed like that might be the case here, too. “Didn’t say when that was, though. Let’s just hope we don’t trip any alarms.”

“Yeah, Moira always seemed like the type,” Fareeha said darkly. Hanzo raised an eyebrow at that. Jesse started to tell him it was a joke, thought better of his interactions with Moira over the years, and kept quiet instead. 

Decay had clearly set in long ago; though most of the wood and metal furnishings remained intact under the orb of light Hanzo cast to illuminate the space, the cot pushed to one side had fallen mostly to pieces. Scraps of paper sat on the many surfaces around the space, as if abandoned in a hurry, laid next to various bits of magic components and machinery that looked like they might once have been expensive. Jesse avoided those out of just as much fear of breaking off the fiddly bits as of triggering an unseen spell.

Fortunately, Fareeha soon found Moira’s main supply of books and more papers, intact this time, trunks and trunks full of them. After a careful inspection and a few spells cast, she deemed them safe enough to divvy the lot up between them for a closer look.

Hanzo eyed the first book he plucked from the trunk. “What kind of work did you say this woman did for the Watch?”

Hard to blame him for his suspicion. “Little bit of everything, to be honest. She was the best at removing curses, or at least destroying objects if a curse couldn’t be lifted. Kept coming up with ways to defend against necromantic spells, anything that tried to mess with the mind. Others did the crafting, but the warding we carried was all her work.”

“And of course she had to understand that magic to defend against it.” Hanzo still handled the book with distaste, though he shooed his familiars away when their inquisitive snouts got too close. “I knew there were spells crafted for any number of dark purposes, but it’s different seeing them all collected together.”

“You’re telling me. This place is making my skin crawl,” Fareeha said. Her hand kept fluttering to the pendant around her neck every so often, as if to reassure herself of its protection.

Working in silence made the interior of the laboratory all the more suffocating, so they kept up a string of unrelated comments just to lighten the pressure in the room. Jesse didn’t mind having his focus interrupted if it meant he could stay a little less convinced that something horrible was going to break loose from one of the machines and attack them. Besides, his trunk looked like it would be of little use. He kept setting aside sheets of unfamiliar script so he could check later if it was anything Fareeha or Hanzo could read.

“This is more than just necromancy. This is weird demonic shit.”

“Makes sense, she had to dispose some pretty nasty stuff over the years,” Jesse said distractedly, rifling through a pile of papers. All looked like they pre-dated the Fall, as far as he could guess, and focused on behir, of all things. Below that laid a stack of notes all written in spindly Abyssal. Not only had Moira been a prolific researcher, she’d also apparently known too many damn languages for half her materials to be of any use.

“No, I mean…” Fareeha sounded genuinely unnerved. “Come look at this, will you?”

Crowded over her shoulders with Hanzo, Jesse began to see what she meant. Annotated margins in a book of summonings were never a good sign. Could be easy, sometimes, to see the Watch’s work as rosier than it had been, but they’d run up against this and worse in the past.

“This one’s dated way before the Fall, too. I’ve got one stack of old reports from the few weeks leading up to the attack, but it’s standard stuff about what was gathered on missions, what was destroyed. Nothing helpful.” Jesse sighed. “Let’s pack up whatever’s least likely to try to possess us in our sleep. Don’t think we have time to sit here and read through everything, but maybe some of the Watch reports will be helpful.”

“We  _ do _ have the time,” Hanzo said dryly. “But I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to stay here a minute longer than we need to.”

Jesse slotted some of the more legible mission notes into the books most closely aligned with their subjects. Just for safety’s sake, Fareeha dispelled the more suspicious-looking books before vanishing them into her haversack. Jesse figured that ought to be enough that they’d be able to sleep through the night without any unwelcome intrusions of a fiendish nature.

Emerging into the cool evening air came as a bit of a shock after hours cooped up in the stagnant, dusty room. As eager as he was to put some distance between them and the laboratory, he hesitated when he saw how much more obvious the entrance looked than when they’d arrived.

“Do you know how to seal it back up?”

“Do we even  _ need _ to, if it’s abandoned?”

Looking discomfited by the thought, Hanzo asked, “Are you certain this Moira is dead? Maybe we should leave it as it was when we arrived.”

“Never know, with Watch folks. Resourceful bunch.” Jesse looked around and sighed. “Yeah, better clean up the mess. Not that I think she’s coming back anytime soon, but it’d be obvious to anyone else who finds the place if we left it like this.”

The lack of immediately helpful information in Moira’s abandoned lab was...disheartening, to say the least, especially given how uneasy it left everyone. Jesse could tell he wasn’t the only one feeling that way, given the scowl Fareeha directed at her notebook that evening after entering the scant information they’d found and the way Hanzo went quiet in a way he hadn’t since their earliest days of traveling together. There was always a chance they’d be able to find something in the papers they’d gathered, some detail in the notes from near the Watch’s end, but it would likely take a while to sort through everything.

All the books looked like dense reading, but Jesse still sat down with one while picking at his meal. By the time he set it aside, Fareeha had taken up another book and, from the looks of it, was struggling through just as he had. Hanzo was nowhere in sight, but his familiars were resting in a contented pile on his bedroll, so Jesse figured he was fine wherever he’d gone.

“I need to get some more water. Want me to fill yours too?”

“Sure, thanks.” Fareeha smiled, just a tad too innocent, as he grabbed her waterskin from where it sat next to her haversack. “Might want to hurry.”

Odd of her to be in such a rush when he was the one doing  _ her _ a favor, but Jesse brushed it off as lingering stress from the lab. If it’d been enough to unnerve him, he could only imagine how much more unnatural it would feel for someone dedicated to the antithesis of all that creepy magic.

Trying to twist the lid off the damn spout kept him busy all the way down to the river they’d been following all day. Wasn’t easy to keep the canteen tucked under an armpit while tugging valiantly at the seal, all without stumbling over any dips in the ground, but somehow he managed to get to the water’s edge without any problems.

“Jesse?”

In his surprise, he fumbled the canteen, which went splashing into the water at his feet. It bobbed along the surface as it traveled down the river, but didn’t get far before being snagged from the current. 

Well, looked like he’d found where Hanzo had disappeared to.

He uncapped it without having to be asked and waded over to offer it up. Jesse snatched it with a brief thanks, trying not to look at Hanzo directly. If even a glimpse of soaped-up skin was enough to reduce him to a clumsy mess, he knew he’d better be careful where his eyes landed as he picked a spot slightly upstream to settle in.

Hanzo didn’t seem perturbed as he returned to his spot at the deepest part of the water. “You looked rather absorbed in that book when I left. Anything interesting?” If anything, he sounded like he hadn’t even noticed just how off-balance his sudden appearance had left him. 

Jesse swallowed around his dry throat. Hard not to notice something so obvious, especially over months of traveling in each other’s pockets, but he hadn’t expected to be so suddenly confronted with how fine of a figure Hanzo cut. “Book was all kinds of lich bullshit. Interesting, sure, but I didn’t understand half of it. Figured I’d take a break, get you or Fareeha to look at it.”

Some of the water splashed onto Jesse’s hand as he lowered one of the canteens to the river’s surface. “How can you stand bathing in that? It’s freezing!” he called down, then made the mistake of looking Hanzo’s way as he filled it, now more careful to avoid any wayward droplets. 

Hanzo tilted his head to the side. His hair fell with the motion, only to reveal more of his slick, muscled shoulders. “Did the dust in that laboratory not bother you? I know we were careful to check for magic, but even so, it feels like it’s lingering somehow. And this is the only water source at hand, so...”

“Yeah, yeah, I felt it too.” Jesse quickly averted his eyes again as Hanzo emerged from the river, evidently cleaned off to his satisfaction. The task of screwing the cap back on kept him mercifully occupied until the rustling of cloth had stopped.

“You should bathe as well, while we can.” Hanzo extended a hand holding a squat brick of soap, and when Jesse opened his mouth to tell him just how little he’d like any part of him to be submerged in water that frigid, he smirked. “Although I may soon need to fetch some water of my own.”

Hanzo dropped it into his hand and walked off while Jesse’s mouth continued to gape open, utterly useless. “I really was thirsty!” he hollered back as Hanzo crested the rise towards camp. But as much as he’d been teasing, Hanzo did have a point — Moira had always unnerved him, and even the crumbling remnants of her long-silent laboratory was enough to bring that feeling crawling back along his skin.

Face aflame, Jesse quickly scrubbed down in similar fashion before throwing his clothes back on as quickly as he could manage. At least the severe chill from the fast-flowing water had cooled some of the heat present in his cheeks to the point where no evidence of his foolishness would be evident at a glance. He couldn’t fathom how Hanzo managed to look so calm while standing in such frigid currents, when the temperature left him shivering after a much shorter bath.

Stumbling back to camp on numbed feet gave him plenty of time to curse Hanzo’s inhuman tolerance of the cold. Heedless of Fareeha’s light ribbing, he bundled himself firmly inside his bedroll to restore sensation to his extremities before he even  _ thought _ of reaching for another one of the books. When that turned out to be just as dense in magical theory as the previous one, he sighed and swapped it for Fareeha’s journal, hoping she might be able to glean more from it while he looked over the tidbits she’d added from the day’s visit. 

Jesse cast a critical eye over the assembled information, unable to pinpoint what seemed off about it. None of it looked  _ wrong _ , but it still looked like an aimless jumble of threads. Felt like they were getting closer to finding the connections between everything, at least.

Nothing more jumped out at him, so he packed it away into the haversack with a sigh. Might be that a fresh set of eyes in the morning would make more sense. His hand brushed against something as he dropped the journal into place — odd, when he hadn’t been looking for anything in particular.

His fingers closed around a roll of parchment. Even before he pulled it out, he knew which one it would be.

_ You’re not far from Goldshire Academy. If you hurry, you might be able to catch Headmistress Adawe before she leaves for the holiday break. _

And a little farther below, scratched out in even messier writing:

_ You’ll want to hurry. _

Jesse looked up, stomach sinking at the message. “Either of you ever heard of Goldshire Academy?”

 

* * *

 

Never before had Sombra added a suggestion to any of their previous locations, and despite how slippery the Collective had been about information in the past, they all agreed Adawe needed to be their next priority. Jesse hadn’t even thought to ask for her whereabouts, considering Lena had already spoken with her, but if they were being told to go directly there? She had to have something worth talking about.

As it turned out, they were right to take the Collective’s advice.

The path to the university opened wide past the entry gate, revealing a courtyard packed with clusters of people fighting. Only a few wore the gray robes of the fleeing students they’d passed on their way in, but they seemed to be rallying around a gnome in gray and holding their own admirably well against the dark-robed cultists flooding the yard. Nearly all of the heavy doors to the courtyard sat closed, locking the rest of the interior safely away.

Of course, the fact that the gnome sat upon a roaring bear was likely contributing to their success in mowing down the invaders. As Jesse watched, the bear drove its lowered head underneath one of the cultists aiming for a student, then tossed it effortlessly to the side.

“Lúcio!” the gnome shouted as a heavily muscled human bearing a broadsword began closing in on her position. A second later, one of the dwarven students positioned far from the center of the action reappeared directly beside the threat, plunging a curved rapier deep into the side of the cultist’s abdomen as he ran past.

Another two figures in cloaks of faded blue were set apart from the rest, but seemed to be aiding the students rather than the attackers. He didn’t have time for more than a quick assessment, but Jesse caught sight of a few bolts from the black tabaxi’s wicked hand crossbow aimed at the backs of some of the cultists, while the gold dragonborn ran fearlessly into melee combat with three cultist mages and efficiently removed them from the fight.

Putting the two out of mind for the meantime — if they turned against the students as time went on, Jesse would worry about them then — he took note of a clear spot against the edge of the courtyard, with the wall at his back and a sturdy stone column he could use for cover if need be. 

Seemed Hanzo noticed it, too. “Care to join me?” Hanzo asked, already taking aim at one of the cultists as he moved into position.

“Yeah, I’m coming. Fareeha, how do you want us covering—”

“Jesse.” Fareeha barely breathed his name, but as soon as he looked in the same direction, he saw what stopped her in her tracks.

Jesse only saw a brief flash of a silvered mask emerging from the open door at the far side of the courtyard, but that was all he needed. He’d seen that same image countless times before, stamped onto the shoulder of each of the operatives in his division. There was no mistaking it for anything — or anyone — else.

Jesse hadn’t expected the chill touch of fear that dripped down his spine at the realization that they’d finally tracked down their target.

Fareeha readjusted her hold on the glaive’s grip as Reaper emerged from the depths of the college, flanked by a cluster of even more cultists. Bright light burst forth from the blade, cutting through the growing gloom descending on the college. As little as Jesse knew about magic, he knew that the bite in the air and the slowly creeping shadows were unnatural, and took a bare bit of comfort in seeing Fareeha’s magic hold it back.

“Letting your god do all the work for you?”

The broken, hollow voice that emerged from behind the mask nearly staggered Jesse when he heard it. For a second, he wondered if perhaps Reinhardt  _ had _ been wrong this whole time, unable to fathom how Gabriel could transform so fully into the malevolent being in front of them. 

Any doubt he felt fell away when one clawed gauntlet reached up to pull the mask up and over his head. There was no mistaking the lines of Gabriel’s face, but there was no trace of the pensive leader Jesse had known for most of his adult life. Instead, fissures of shining orange cracked across his skin and added a flickering cast to the sneer he aimed in their direction. Every one of Jesse’s instincts screamed at him to run, that the creature in front of him was built  _ wrong _ on a fundamental level that would poison anything else that got too close.

Fareeha didn’t seem to feel the same dread he did. “He’s yours, too, if you haven’t forgotten,” she shot back, bristling.

Reaper didn’t seem to hear her, peering curiously past the two of them. Jesse only had a brief moment to feel viscerally relieved that he wasn’t looking at him before he realized Reaper’s gaze was fixed on Hanzo, instead. His head tilted to the side before his red eyes flashed a bright, blinding white among the shadowy crags of his face. The cavernous mouth twisted into an unnaturally wide grin. “Did something as powerful as you are really come down from your castle just to play pet to a pair of worthless mortals?”

Hanzo’s only answer came in the form of an arrow sent flying directly into Reaper’s chest. He looked  _ furious _ , teeth set in a soundless snarl, and Jesse suddenly became very aware of how lucky they were to have him fighting on their side.

The impact barely seemed to bother Reaper; a brief flick of his hand towards the arrow embedded in his armor turned it to ash that fell harmlessly to the ground. The soil bubbled where the remnants landed, turning the lush grass a lifeless brown in an instant. The wrongness of it all prickled over Jesse’s skin like heavy fog, and he felt suddenly unable to stand there a second longer.

“Don’t rightly know who we’re talking to, but I know you aren’t Gabriel Reyes,” Jesse said, voice ringing out clear and steady across the length of slowly-dying grass separating them. It felt like a miracle that it didn’t shake like his insides were. “And I’m gonna have to take issue with you wearing his face.”

That finally got him to hesitate, burning eyes flickering between Jesse and Fareeha. “Who  _ are _ you?” he screeched, reeling backwards in frustration, and dropped the heavy book held in one hand to draw the swords sheathed at both hips instead. A cloud of darkness emerged from the ground at his feet, billowing outwards until it swallowed all but the periphery in black smoke. 

Jesse’s hand hesitated on his crossbow, unwilling to take the first shot, but Fareeha didn’t hesitate to engage. “Get back inside!” she yelled at the pack of students at the periphery, pointing the way with her glaive, then went charging forward into the darkness ahead. 

Jesse thought his heart might stop out of fear, seeing her disappear into the black, and focused on shooting down another few cultists lingering on the field. She had all sorts of magic at her disposal, and a wicked blade to boot. She wouldn’t rush in without being able to handle herself.

Fortunately, the students had enough sense to disengage and bolt for one of the remaining doors leading towards the interior of the school once the curling black tendrils of smoke reached the ground at their feet. The gnome atop her bear hesitated, watching the other students get closer to the door, until multiple shouts of “Hana, come on!” spurred her to get moving.

With both Jesse and Hanzo redirecting their arrows towards any of the cultists that tried to follow or block the retreat, all the students managed to get behind the door, the damned bear the last to disappear through the frame. The boom of the heavy wooden door slamming shut behind them echoed across the field, followed by a screeching clang as the students barred it against intrusion.

That left the two unfamiliar fighters to focus on the remaining cultists scattered around the courtyard. Surprisingly few remained, most felled by the combined efforts against them — Jesse guessed that fancy Academy education must be effective, after all he’d seen fall to the apprentices.

Part of the darkness began turning less opaque than the rest. As Jesse watched out of the corner of his eye, between downing still more cultists, a faint shaft of light shone through, dispersing more of the shadows. Some of the black smoke swirled away, and Jesse finally caught a glimpse of Fareeha in the light of the blade, dissipating more of the darkness as she moved further in. Reaper snarled as his cloak of obscurity fell away piece by piece with each swing of her weapon, his means of stealthy escape stubbornly removed by Fareeha and the holy light of her glaive.

She blocked the first strike of his sword with the pole of her glaive, and by the time Reaper brought the second to bear on her weapon, Jesse gathered himself enough to aim and shoot. The tabaxi and dragonborn could handle the remaining cultists — Reaper was his and Fareeha’s responsibility.

His next shot missed its mark, but Jesse dug deep and focused on aiming and shooting as quickly as possible. Scrambling to get another two bolts nocked and flying in the space of another breath, he nonetheless had to suppress a flinch when both of them sank deep into the black leather armor so unlike the chainmail he was accustomed to seeing on Gabriel. Next to him, Hanzo managed to loose six arrows in the space of a few seconds, all but two punching through the vulnerable points of Reaper’s armor.

Between strikes of glaive and sword against each other, Reaper snarled out something that sounded like the distant drone of hornets. Fareeha staggered back with a shout. The light of her blade guttered for only a moment among the remaining wisps of darkness before returning to full strength, though the spell looked like it took more out of her than any of Reaper’s previous blows. 

A low curse showed Hanzo noticed it, too. Jesse was desperately relieved to see his hand go towards the pouch at his hip, too aware that neither of them would stand a chance with only bows if they moved within striking distance.

The hair on Jesse’s arms stood up, the air around him crackling with energy as Hanzo withdrew a clear rod from among the various spell components he carried. “Fareeha, move!” he shouted, extending his arm.

Jesse squeezed off another bolt that pierced through the muscle of Reaper’s shoulder, making his next swing with the sword in that arm go wide. Once out of reach, Fareeha spun and sprinted towards the same side of the courtyard as Jesse, clearing a path between Hanzo and Reaper.

With a flick of the wrist, Hanzo condensed the sharp, metallic scent to the air into a single spark that jumped outwards from the rod in his hand, gaining strength as it streaked towards Reaper. A fully-formed bolt of lightning caught him directly in the middle of the chest, illuminating the courtyard with a blinding flash. All that Jesse saw before he had to flinch away from the sight was Reaper staggering backwards from the impact.

When the lingering starbursts in Jesse’s vision receded enough to allow him to see clearly again, Reaper no longer stood among them. He scanned the area, unconvinced that Gabriel would just leave without his prize, and saw nothing until three bolts of swirling purple energy coursed towards Hanzo and the two other defenders on the field. As soon as the magic formed out of the air, Jesse saw Reaper reappear atop the vaulted roof of the Academy tower. He watched impassively as the magic hit all three of its targets, then turned and strode away from the courtyard, disappearing from sight.

Jesse gave up on his attempt at firing one last shot off at Reaper and took stock of the situation, seemingly safe for now. Fareeha only seemed the slightest bit unsteady on her feet from all the blows she’d taken, though Hanzo looked winded as he rose to a crouch and shook off the nasty shock of Reaper’s final blast. At least he wasn’t the only one knocked over by the impact — the dragonborn had to go help the tabaxi up from where they had been sent sprawling onto their back.

The tome sat in the middle of a perfect lane of scorched grass bisecting the courtyard. Rushing over, Fareeha picked it up from the smoldering ground before it could catch fire and brushed the cover free of any dirt before tucking it under her arm.

With the immediate danger gone, gray-robed students began peering out of the previously-barred doors. “Stay put!” came a commanding voice over the speculative rumble of murmurs, and the gnome and dwarf that they’d seen earlier pushed to the front, aided by the bulk of the bear trundling along behind to shove any nosy passersby out of their way.

Hana only spoke up again when the pair reached the three of them and saw the book in Fareeha’s hand. “You got it back!”

“It got dropped on the ground, but I don’t think it was damaged,” Fareeha said apologetically, holding it out towards her.

“Thanks, but there’s no way either of us are touching that,” Lúcio said, eyeing the book warily. “That’s got some majorly evil stuff in it. I’m in my final year and we haven’t even gone anywhere  _ near _ that level of magic, never mind anything that dark.”

“Yeah, they keep it locked up away so nobody can get it without an escort.” Hana didn’t seem as perturbed by its presence, but still kept a careful distance from Fareeha. “One of the traveling scholars tried to get to it without permission a couple weeks ago, and they put extra wards on that collection of books afterwards. Hard to believe anyone got through that.”

Dryly, Fareeha said, “It’s amazing how much damage a couple dozen cultists can do. Things would’ve been a lot worse if you and your professors hadn’t taken down most of them.”

Hana blinked. “Our professors are already home for break — these were just the students that live too far from family to visit. I thought the others were with you.”

That didn’t sound promising, no matter their actions during the fight. If there were already two attempts to steal this book, a third, complete with eliminating the larger faction that had a greater chance of getting away with it, wasn’t off the table.  _ Especially _ if the Collective turned out to have bad information and everyone with any authority was already gone.

Jesse turned to scan the courtyard, and amidst the stone columns and bent metal gates, caught sight of two figures, one sleek, one bulky, retreating at a rapid pace towards the same entrance the three of them had entered through. The dragonborn leaned against the tabaxi to compensate for the slight limp he bore, enough that Jesse had to immediately break into a sprint to have a hope of catching them before they left. Loud clanking from behind told him that Fareeha, at least, was following behind; Hanzo’s chain shirt made as little sound under silk as advertised, and he couldn’t chance a look back.

His answer came when an arrow shot past him, missing both escaping defenders but coming close enough that they broke apart. The dragonborn stumbled as he lost the support the tabaxi had provided. They were close enough now that Jesse could see the flash of panic go across the dragonborn’s face as well as the urgency with which the tabaxi pulled on his arm while glancing back in their direction.

Fareeha’s grip went lax as she came to an abrupt halt, and for the second time that day, the tome dropped to the ground.

“Mom?”

For one delirious moment, Jesse thought Fareeha must’ve gotten knocked harder on the head than he’d realized. But the cloaked tabaxi stopped in their attempts to aid the dragonborn, and the forbidding feline face wavered briefly before giving way to another, older than when he’d last seen it but still painfully familiar.

“Ana,” he breathed.

Her face held no trace of the warmth he’d become accustomed to in his later years at the Watch. Instead, she looked wary in a way he hadn’t seen since the early days of his recruitment.

All the time the Watch spent tracking down leads to ensure she hadn’t been captured, including hours Jesse had personally spent scouring her last mission site in fear of finding a body, and all of it for nothing. And here she was standing in front of her daughter and — and him, nearly a decade later, all the nightmares and frustration and regrets on both their parts turning out to be just as useless as all his searching.

He thought seeing Gabriel in his current state would be just about the worst thing he’d have to brace for, but he’d been totally unprepared for this. When the dragonborn’s bulky form also shivered and collapsed, revealing a scarred but still recognizable human face, he barely had any more shock left in him to react.

Jack Morrison raised a hand in a half-hearted wave. “Hey,” he said awkwardly, voice just as rough as Jesse remembered. “So are you coming back to base with us or what?”

 

* * *

 

Just about their only saving grace was that none of the students seemed to recognize that two of the Watch’s founders, saviors of the continent, were standing on Goldshire grounds. Hana might’ve had a knowing look in her eye, but given the way she kept her cool and got the other students to agree to report the incident to school authorities but leave their involvement out of it, Jesse didn’t feel all too concerned if she had pieced together just who had been present.

There was nothing for Jesse and Fareeha to do except to take Jack up on his offer to return to his and Ana’s base of operations. Meanwhile, Hanzo gave away no sign of what he thought of their detour, more inscrutable than he’d been since the initial leg of their journey. They all kept quiet for the most part as they picked their way through the scrubby foothills full of mines that had originally given the school its name, too concerned with avoiding a poor turn of the ankle that might spell serious injury to bother starting a discussion that would no doubt take hours.

Fareeha and Jesse walked side by side for much of it, still unable to comprehend the presence of the pair leading the way, occasionally brushing arms to ground themselves in some familiarity among the confusion of all that had changed in such a short time. He couldn’t spend too much time thinking about it. Not now, after seeing for himself what Gabriel had become. 

That, at least, he was accustomed to puzzling over by now. All those years working directly with Gabriel on missions of every kind, and he’d never seen him do anything like the magic he’d performed at the Academy. Those all-encompassing shadows had managed to raise the temperature of the courtyard in only a manner of minutes, as if there were embers underneath billowing out black smoke. Gabriel always wielded light more easily than other forms of magic, burning with righteous radiance as he swept across a battlefield, and Jesse didn’t think he’d ever seen him cloak himself in shadows instead. 

He didn’t like to think what had changed inside Gabriel to extinguish that light. 

He felt more troubled than ever before by the time they arrived at the crumbling remains of a temple — to what god, Jesse couldn’t tell; the reliefs on the stone walls were worn indistinguishable by time. He noticed a few trinkets set respectfully on top of a mantel that jutted out from beneath the largest of the scenes carved into the walls, and reached into a pouch to add one of the last parchment-wrapped hard candies from Emily and Lena to the pile. 

“There are plenty of antechambers in the interior of the ruins,” Ana said softly as she came to a halt in front of a long corridor. “Jack and I are only occupying two of them beyond this one — don’t worry about taking up room.”

Fareeha headed directly down the hall, while Jesse made himself sit and eat something first. Even though he didn’t feel much like eating, he didn’t want to wake up the next morning feeling  _ all _ out of sorts. Still, it didn’t take long for the sensation of being scrutinized across the room to become overwhelming, and he muttered his excuses before stalking off in search of someplace quiet to sleep.

He finally found Fareeha in about the dozenth room he checked, feeling a little foolish for having to look so long. It was a good location — not too much dust choking the air, and tucked far enough inside the compound that the howling winds outside were nothing more than a faint drone.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked. He wasn’t entirely sure if it was the best idea to be there, but if he didn’t feel much like being alone, he could only imagine how much worse it was for Fareeha.

“No, go ahead.”

She sounded subdued but sincere, so Jesse took her at her word and walked in, setting his pack down and beginning the process of readying himself for sleep. He kept his head carefully bent to the task in case she needed one last moment of privacy, but when he laid his bedroll out alongside hers, her face was dry. She looked surprisingly even-keeled for someone who had just hours earlier found out her mother had been alive for the past decade.

Then again, Fareeha was about the most unflappable person he knew. She might be young for her people, but she had mastered the elven art of taking everything in stride better than almost anyone he knew. 

“Are you going to bed already?” she asked, watching him crawl into the thick bedding.

“You bet I am. Been the kind of day where I’ve been looking forward to being unconscious for most of it.”

She paused, considering. “You know? You have a point.”

Jesse slung an arm over his eyes as Fareeha began quietly preparing for bed. He had to admire her dedication to the same nighttime routine as usual, even among all the chaos of the day.

Almost as soon as he extricated his arm out from under the mess of blankets and carefully laid his hand out in the space between bedrolls, an itch behind one of his ears decided to make itself obvious. He steadfastly ignored it, refusing to withdraw, and was rewarded when Fareeha’s hand slipped into his.

Somehow she was still the one to give a comforting squeeze. “It’s going to be okay, you know?”

“Sure. Doesn’t mean it isn’t gonna suck getting there.”

There was a faint whisper of moving blankets, and in the dim light, Jesse saw her tuck an arm under her head, looking unusually vulnerable. “Well, you’re not wrong,” she said with a humorless laugh.

It took him even longer to drift off than he expected, given the emotional whiplash of the day’s events, but he did so with her hand in his, both of them in desperate need of strength for the day ahead.

It didn’t come as much of a surprise when Jesse woke halfway through the night. He blinked rapidly until the billowing smoke from his restless sleep fell away, otherwise lying perfectly still as he let the empty ruins pacify the chaos of recalled battle.

A soft grumble broke the near-silence of the room. Familiar enough that his sleep-addled brain didn’t register it as a threat, but not from a source he could pinpoint immediately. Jesse turned his head to the side, squinting to make out shapes in the faint, watery light spilling in from the waning moon, and found the source of the noise. One of the pseudodragons, trapped under both of Fareeha’s arms, grumbled again as she squeezed it closer in her sleep. The other curled around the top of her head, contentedly nesting in her hair. That was going to be one hell of a tangled mess to sort out in the morning.

It took a minute of blearily watching one lock of Fareeha’s hair rise and fall with the little dragon’s breaths for Jesse to put together the realization that if his familiars were here, then Hanzo must be nearby. With both of Fareeha’s hands now occupied with the creature snuggled up to her chest, Jesse was free to sit up on one elbow and look around the room.

Jesse wasn’t prepared for the kick in the chest that came when he looked over his shoulder and saw Hanzo curled up in his bedroll, carefully positioned between the door and where he and Fareeha slept. Barely a word from either of them to Hanzo since they arrived at Goldshire, too wrapped up in their own shock and betrayal and remembered grief to muster a word of explanation, and still he took up position as a protective barrier.

A low, echoing croak came from the pseudodragon in Fareeha’s arms. Jesse thought nothing of it, resigning himself to hunkering back down into his bedroll and waiting for his conflicted emotions to calm enough for sleep to claim him again, until Hanzo stirred. Too late, he remembered that was the same distress call the pseudodragons let out when they encountered anything suspicious on the road. He leveled a half-hearted glare in the creature’s direction, but it had already shut its eyes once more, settling back into sleep. 

When Jesse looked back over, he found Hanzo blinking himself awake. “Is something the matter?” His voice was a hushed whisper, but even newly woken up, he sounded concerned. His eyes locked on Jesse’s face, unerringly accurate despite his inability to see well in the dim light.

“Just a nightmare,” Jesse said, just as quiet. “Didn’t mean to bother you.”

“Do you need anything?”

And gods, Jesse hadn’t regretted the loss of his arm more fiercely in years, now that he wasn’t able to reach out and close the distance between them. “Naw,” he said instead, lowering himself down from his propped-up position. “Gonna try to get back to sleep.”

Fortunately, he slept far more deeply on his second attempt. When Jesse emerged in the mid-morning sunlight, he found Fareeha, Ana, and Jack all sitting around an ancient fireplace carved into the rock — still functional, going by the teakettle Jack was minding over a magical flame. Hanzo sat off to the side, flipping through Fareeha’s journal with a pensive look on his face.

Ana and Fareeha looked strained as they spoke quietly in Elvish. It had been a while since Jesse felt so grateful that his mother’s people lived in a different region altogether, letting him tune out the unfamiliar dialect and sit down next to Jack.

“So how is it that you three just happened to get to Goldshire while the attack was going on?” Jack asked.

“Had a tip. Long story short, Lena got us a direct line to the Sombra Collective so we could find surviving agents. Hasn’t been the most helpful, but we’ve been able to piece together some of what happened before everything went to shit.”

“Sombra? Be careful with that info. You can trust her to have her own agenda and that’s about it.”

Jesse’s hand paused over his cup. “Her? You have a contact in the Collective?”

Jack sighed. “Unfortunately. But there isn’t really a collective. Took me forever to tease it out, but Sombra is just one person, as far as I can tell.”

“You’re telling me  _ one person _ has detailed enough info on former Watch agents to send us to their doorsteps?” If that was the case, Sombra was far more dangerous than they’d realized. None of the former agents were particularly loose-lipped about their former affiliation, and they were the kind of folk that knew how to hide themselves away if they felt like it. For one single person to have tracked down everyone on that list? That spoke to far more concentrated resources than Jesse had assumed.

His growing unease over their reliance on Sombra was interrupted as Fareeha suddenly broke into Common, sounding heated at whatever Ana had said to provoke her. “No servant of Helm should be able to do what he did yesterday! That was about as far as you can get from holy magic. It felt  _ wrong _ .”

“If it wasn’t holy — you mean something from one of the hells?” It made a certain amount of sense, given that Jesse had never once seen Gabriel do any of the magic Reaper had flung at them. “You think he’s working with a fiend of some kind?”

“He could be working with one  _ or _ being taken advantage of by one. But even if he had entered the service of a god of ill intent, I’m almost certain I would recognize some spells.” She shook her head, visibly disturbed at the thought.

“It...could be,” Ana said, sounding contemplative.

“Yeah, well, that sounds familiar. Had about half the constructs start saying that after the war — they’d been placed under demonic influence, the fighting wasn’t of their own free will, just wanted to live on their own terms even though they were created to fight. Convenient that they were only able to break free of that demonic influence  _ after _ their creators surrendered.”

“Have you forgotten who brokered the peace with the constructs after they stopped fighting?” Ana turned on Jack with her hands on her hips. “It certainly wasn’t you or me. Perhaps exposure to whatever afflicted them left him vulnerable.”

“If that’s true, we might be able to do something about it, right?” Jesse asked, turning to Fareeha for confirmation. 

“Believe me — I more than anyone wish it wasn’t him,” Jack said, sounding more worn-out than in all the years he’d carried the massive stresses of running the Watch. “But we have evidence that Talon brought it all down with help from the inside, and with Gabriel working for them now, it makes the most sense. We spent years trying to run down who did it with nothing to show for it. Sometimes...sometimes it really is the simplest answer.”

There was no arguing with the defeat in his voice — not right then, at least. But even if they failed to convince Jack, he’d seen the hope that sparked in Ana’s remaining eye.

Jesse could only hope she’d talked Jack around by the time they had a clearer picture of how they could help Gabriel. If Fareeha was right — and Jesse trusted her instincts when it came to something as important as this, especially given how it fit with what they’d seen of Reaper — he suspected they’d need all the help they could get.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Fareeha approached him to ask if he’d take a walk with her, only a few nights after their arrival, Jesse knew what was coming. 

“I need to stay here,” she said, forthright as ever. For all its beauty, the expansive view of the setting sun from their position atop the cliffs did nothing to soften the blow. “With Mom being alive…”

Jesse refused to show any upset over the thought of leaving her behind. He couldn’t do that to her, not when it was so important that she stay.  “Can’t say it doesn’t come as a surprise. You need to be with her, I get it. The way she vanished all at once, I don’t blame you.”

Fareeha’s leg swung out to kick a rock as they walked, sending it skittering towards the edge. “It’s just for a while. And if you two find something out while I’m gone and don’t tell me, I’ll hunt you down myself. If you need me for  _ anything _ , you let me know, alright? I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“I wouldn’t leave you out on anything important, I promise. Just don’t get into too much trouble with those two, alright?” Jesse mustered a smile. “I know elves talk a lot about ‘the wisdom of our elders,’ but Ana and Jack’s wisdom always seems to lead them towards a fight of some kind. The bigger the better with them.”

Laughing, Fareeha said, “Right? And they always called  _ us _ hotheads.” 

They came to a slow stop as the ruins disappeared over the hill, neither of them willing to go too far in case of anything lurking among the abandoned structures but not quite ready to return. For all that it had to be a difficult decision to make, Fareeha seemed lighter with her intentions out in the open. Jesse was glad that the way forward was clear for her, at least, even if he still wasn’t sure where the investigation would lead him and Hanzo.

“Besides, maybe it’s for the best,” Fareeha said, squinting out into the last rays of dying sunlight over the ruins. “I get a chance to really  _ talk _ with Mom, but it also gives you two a chance to get your shit together.”

“Gives —  _ what _ ?”

“Hanzo was awake for some of my watch shifts, too. If he can look at you the way he does, having seen the way you snore loud enough to bring a pack of gnolls down on us, I think he’d say yes if you asked.”

“There’s no asking! There’s nothing to be asked!”

Fareeha snorted out a laugh, shaking her head. They both remained quiet for a long few minutes. Jesse had barely felt the heat in his cheeks start to abate before she asked, “Where do you think you’ll go next?”

Jesse scratched the edge of his beard, wondering if it was crazy to voice the thought in his head. But he figured he’d better — if he needed to be cut off now, before making any foolish decisions, he could trust Fareeha to do it. “Was thinking of trying to find the constructs left over from the war. If they said they weren’t able to make their own choices, that there was something inside them making them follow the mages’ commands, maybe they know something that could help Gabriel if something similar’s happening to him.”

Quietly, he admitted, “I have to believe something similar’s happening to him.”

Fareeha’s mouth twisted, but he knew she saw the sense in it too. “Seems like it’s as good a lead as any. Be careful, though, will you? Haven’t heard of too many encounters with constructs after the war where everyone walked away intact.”

Hanzo agreed when Jesse told him his idea later that evening, and just like that, they had a destination.

Neither of them wanted to linger too long. Jesse knew it’d be harder for him to leave the longer they stayed — and judging by how tightly Fareeha held onto him during their goodbyes a few short days later, it was just as hard to be the one staying behind.

“See you soon,” she said as she released him. Hanzo looked a little taken aback when she turned towards him next. “You’re not getting out of this, either. C’mere.”

Jesse occupied himself with stilted goodbyes to Ana and Jack until Fareeha stepped away again, murmuring something he couldn’t hear to Hanzo as she went.

“Are you ready?” Hanzo asked quietly.

Jesse’s mouth tightened as he looked over the small assembly in front of them. Didn’t feel right, leaving Fareeha without any idea of when they might see each other next — let alone leaving Ana and Jack when he’d only just found them alive again. “Guess so,” he said anyway, squaring his shoulders and turning to face Hanzo.

At least Hanzo looked nearly as conflicted as he must. He held out both hands, and Jesse copied him, confused. One of Hanzo’s hands gripped Jesse’s own, while the other slid to cup the remnants of his elbow, warm and steady against his skin. Having Hanzo’s focus entire focus on him like that made Jesse reconsider if there might be more to Fareeha’s suggestion than he thought, but he quashed the notion as quickly as it came to mind. Wasn’t right to be thinking of something like that when they were heading off on the slimmest of leads in the hopes of finding something useful.

He barely felt the ground shift beneath his feet, but the sudden drop in temperature clued him in to their arrival. He’d never realized it was possible to build up a resistance of sorts to teleportation — figured it either sat well or didn’t, depending on the person, and figured he knew which group  _ he _ belonged to — but he wasn’t one to complain at an unexpected reprieve. Jesse opened his eyes again, ever cautious, but sure enough he noticed no ill effects once again. 

Hanzo, on the other hand, looked rather peaked. Jesse followed his line of sight up to the treeline, then further up when he realized what exactly Hanzo was looking for.

The mountain the constructs lived atop loomed far above them, obscured by low-lying clouds that blocked their view of their destination. Jesse had been born atop one of a similarly impressive height, lived the first years of his life changing elevation as he and his mother moved from village to village spread out among the cliffs, and still his stomach clenched at the sight of it. 

Within a few days, they’d have either their answers or a dead end.

Jesse wasn’t sure which possibility made him more nervous.

 

* * *

 

Midnight found Jesse on the fringes of their small camp, restless over the path ahead. Looking over the heavily forested slope they’d climbed earlier helped, if only a little, even if the altitude brought an unwelcome chill with it that was worse for being out of his bedroll.

A rustle sounded behind him, too small to be anything worth worrying over. He thought he might have an inkling what it might be. He sat perfectly still, waiting to see what would happen.

One of the pseudodragons finally emerged from the darkness and crawled closer, head angled diffidently in his direction, but when Jesse held his hand out to see what it would do, it scrambled back. “Hey now. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

The pseudodragon’s ears pricked forward at his words, and Jesse suddenly found himself uncomfortably aware of the fact that if Hanzo was able to communicate with them, then maybe they’d understood more of his speech than he cared to think. But the little dragon inched closer at his invitation, eyes fixed on the gap in his cloak that appeared at his neck as he dipped forward towards it, and when Jesse made a beckoning motion with his outstretched hand, it leapt clumsily at him like he’d seen done to Hanzo a dozen times over. 

The cloak tugged uncomfortably for a moment until the pseudodragon found an arrangement that suited it and nestled cozily into the folds of fabric at his neck, scales sliding smoothly against his collarbone. “There we are,” Jesse said with a low chuckle, rearranging some of the material so that it fell more evenly across the little creature’s coiled body. “Guess it’s awful cold up this way for a dragon your size, isn’t it? I’m cold even with all these layers.”

He lifted a finger and cautiously stroked the little snout emerging from under his cloak, uncertain if it would be welcome like when he’d seen Hanzo do it. A tiny puff of vapor burst from its nostrils in the cold air, but its eyes closed as a rumble formed in its narrow chest. Jesse could almost convince himself it was a sigh of contentment, and settled back further against the tree to resume his contemplation of the star-studded sky above, feeling rather content himself. 

The crunch of boots on leaves much later signaled that his time alone had come to an end, though Jesse couldn’t bring himself to be disappointed by it. “Who do you suppose that might be?” he asked softly, but his sleeping companion made no response.

“Stealing my familiar? I thought you had given up your life of crime.”

Jesse glanced in the direction of their camp and saw Hanzo carefully making his way over by the low-burning light of the fire. “Who’s stealing?” he protested with a lazy grin. “I’m just making friends. Surely you can’t begrudge a man some companionship on the lonely road.”

“Not too lonely, I hope.”

Hanzo’s voice held too much melancholy in it to let slide. For all that he’d only met Jesse and Fareeha not even half a year prior, Jesse realized her absence must be hitting Hanzo nearly as hard as it did him — especially considering what he’d told Jesse about wandering the continent alone in the aftermath of his self-imposed exile. 

He waited until Hanzo settled into the dirt next to him, propped against the same tree, then bumped his shoulder lightly. “So long as you don’t go leaving too, I think I’ll be just fine.”

They sat in silence for a time, quiet breaths emerging in long, trailing plumes in the cold air. Mercifully, when Hanzo spoke again, it wasn’t about the unvarnished truth that had snuck into his voice.

“Are you worried at all about what kind of welcome we’ll have?”

“What do you mean?”

Hanzo shrugged. “We’re walking into the last known enclave of constructs and asking if they can help us find the man who laid waste to thousands of their kind in the war. For all we know, they’ll just kill us and be done with it.”

“Never known you to be such a ray of sunshine,” Jesse said dryly. “Listen, I know Fareeha was the fun one, but I’m going to need you to do your part until she comes back. We’ll be fine.”

_ That _ was enough to draw a small smile to Hanzo’s face, though it turned wistful soon enough. “Being so close is bringing back memories.”

“Not the good kind, I take it?”

“Both good and bad. My brother used to have a lot of sympathy for the constructs, when the word got out after the war that they were forced by their creators to fight. I believe he saw their situation as similar to ours, on a larger scale.” Hanzo’s faraway look twisted into something bittersweet. “He was always the one who tried to break free of our family’s expectations. Hearing about the foundation of this temple gave him hope he would do so, I think.”

“Did he?”

“He tried. We fought. I was preoccupied with finding someone to regenerate my leg, afterwards, but I understand he died not long after.”

And oh,  _ shit _ , but Jesse hadn’t realized earlier that the circumstances around that loss were so grave. Not that an injury that required regeneration of an entire limb was ever anything light-hearted, but for it to be so fraught? No wonder Hanzo had brushed him off with a non-answer all those months ago, when they hardly knew each other. 

For all that, it meant something that Hanzo was telling him now, too. Jesse slipped his hand from in between them to rest lightly on Hanzo’s opposite hip, leaving the option open but not pushing, and was answered by Hanzo’s weight coming to rest against his side. 

“You know you can tell me stuff like that, right? Hate to think you’ve had this on your mind while I took us gallivanting off towards a lead that might not even let us through the gates.”

If anything, Hanzo’s shoulders only curled further inwards, making him look even more miserable than before. “I know,” he murmured, and didn’t lean away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Dragoonslinger's art for the pseudodragon reveal](https://66.media.tumblr.com/2afc9232be5e81075eb7f186727c32d5/tumblr_ppo4tdV61Y1xwobbso2_1280.png)


	3. Chapter 3

For all Jesse’s worries about their arrival, at least they didn’t have much longer to fester. Another half day of increasingly narrow trails brought them to the first signs of the temple, sending them on a twisting path between walled-off gardens filled with a few hardy crops.

Winding lazily along the first stretch of flat land they’d walked since beginning, the sun bright and the air crisp, Jesse could almost believe he and Hanzo were doing nothing more than sightseeing. The stone building looming on the path ahead certainly looked like one of the smaller temples that cropped up on waypoints between towns, staffed by only a few clerics who wished to lend aid to any travelers that met misfortune along the road. Its size looked impressive, but that was about it — the outer walls were clearly patched in areas, the sharp lines of newly-carved stone joined to the worn edges that remained from the original construction, forming a building that looked neither respectably aged nor skillfully repaired.

Still, the walls were solid, and Jesse couldn't see any constructs milling around outside. After all his time in the Watch, it unnerved him to walk into any situation blind, let alone when it was a building full of the same beings that had left countless scars across the continent. He'd appreciate getting a first look at the constructs so he could judge for himself if they looked liable to attack on sight, but it seemed they would have to be the ones to make the first move.

Hanzo's shoulder bumped into his own as they approached the door. "You know that overthinking this will only make you look more suspicious to them, don't you?"

"If I could stop worrying about it, I would."

Hanzo made no further comment, although the weight of a pseudodragon settled around his neck a moment later. He didn't have Hanzo's knack for telling them apart, but while he couldn't be sure if it was the same one from the night before, it had the same effect. By the time they drew even with the hammered brass door set into the stone, Jesse was able to let his legs carry him forward to knock decisively on its surface.

He was so caught up in finally being within reach of some answers that he startled when a hand gripped his elbow, tugging him backwards. "What's—"

The door swung open, and for all Jesse's intent to act as calm and non-threatening as possible, he startled at the sudden movement.

Jesse didn't know how a face made of metal and stone could narrow its eyes, but the construct in front of them did. "You're human."

"Well, he is. I'm elf-blooded."

"Same thing," the construct at the door said dismissively. Jesse had the delirious thought that he should bring the more stuck-up members of his mother's clan here to visit, solely to see the looks on their faces at being lumped in with humans. "Born, not forged. So what business do you have here?"

"We heard you have a few scholars of magic among your group. We hoped to speak with them."

The construct harrumphed, obviously displeased. "It is a long way to come for a chat."

"Sure was," Jesse said agreeably. "So you can tell how important it is to us. We're not here to cause any problems, I promise."

The metal-plated mouth flattened into a line. "I will need to speak with someone. Wait here."

"We will."

"Do  _ not _ go anywhere."

"Weren't planning to."

With one last suspicious glance, the construct shut the door firmly behind them.

"So...what do you think are the odds on them throwing us down the mountain?"

Hanzo shrugged, seemingly unperturbed. Jesse envied him — weren't humans the ones who were supposed to be overwhelmed by every little setback in their short lifespan? Seemed he'd gotten more than he'd wanted from his human father. "They will either allow us entrance right away or they won't. They're isolated atop a  _ mountain _ , Jesse. I doubt they're so well-off that there isn't something we can do for them to convince them to accept, if it comes to that."

"True." Even with their promise to stay put and all the uncertainty from their time on the road up to the temple, it took all of Jesse’s willpower to stay in the same spot. The prospect of finally figuring out what exactly felt wrong about the whole situation was almost too much to bear. “Just hope everything goes smoothly. Feels good to be this close, you know?”

“I do.” Hanzo favored him with a small smile. As much as Jesse wished Fareeha could be there, it still felt all the better to be so close to useful information with someone else standing alongside him. 

The door opened again. The construct from before stood to the side instead of blocking the entrance with their bulky form, and it was only then that Jesse realized they stood on four legs instead of two like most constructs he’d seen. “Master Zenyatta has agreed to speak with you.”

The interior of the temple that she led them through was vast and airy, but after the second time Jesse accidentally made eye contact with a visibly wary construct while gaping at the architecture, he kept his eyes fixed firmly forward. No need to unnerve the residents, even if it was unintentional. He didn’t want to create any ill will before they even had the chance to talk to anyone.

Their path ended in a galley of sorts, a long room filled with an even longer table. All of the constructs gathered around it sat on the floor — no need for cushioning against stone when the residents made of stone, Jesse supposed. Every head in the room swiveled towards them as they entered, rendering their guide’s rumbling cough to announce their arrival unnecessary.

One of the constructs on the far end of the room stood to their full height. If not for the animated suits of armor flanking them, Jesse might not have realized that this construct was anyone important. They wore a tattered yellow robe tied with a red sash, in the same style as the others gathered around the low table, and the metal portions of their construction looked no more polished than anyone else in the room.

“These are the visitors, Master Zenyatta,” their guide said stiffly.

“Thank you, Initiate. Why don’t you rejoin the discussion?” The construct turned to the two of them. “Would you walk with me? I am very curious to hear the reasons behind your arrival, but I find it difficult to remain indoors when the sun shines so brightly outside.”

At their nods, the construct led the way out onto a wide terrace that wrapped around most of the building’s upper floor, from the looks of it. It was more than a little unnerving to have someone immediately put his back to two newly arrived strangers who could have any manner of ill intent, for all the monk knew — who was this Zenyatta that he felt invulnerable enough to lead them off unaccompanied?

He didn’t speak again until they reached the railing that encircled the terrace. After how far they’d climbed to get there, the view sure looked stunning, and true to his words, Zenyatta tilted his face up towards the sunlight before addressing them. “Please forgive Initiate Orisa. As you can imagine, we don’t get very many visitors here, and she is...protective.”

“Seems perfectly understandable. Can’t imagine this place was popular when you first started out.”

“I can assure you, it remains unpopular to this day,” Zenyatta said dryly. “My brother travels often to serve as the face of those of us remaining, and I cannot begin to estimate how many threats on his life have occurred over the years. It’s part of why he convinced me to stop accompanying him and mind the temple in his absence instead.”

“Given how busy you must be, we’re grateful that you made the time to speak with us,” Hanzo said.

Zenyatta inclined his head. “What exactly am I meant to be speaking with you about? Few things would compel a traveler to make the journey.”

“Someone I care about is in trouble,” Jesse said, unsure how plainly he should speak. The monk seemed receptive enough to their presence so far, and he didn’t want to give him a reason to distrust them, so he summoned a breath and laid it all out at once. “As far as we’ve been able to figure out, it seems like there’s something demonic going on, but we haven’t been able to figure out what, exactly. We came here in the hopes of learning more about construct magic — I  _ know _ it’s different, but I remember there was some talk of demonic influence causing your part in the war. Any insight you could provide would be helpful.”

“We mean no harm to any of the constructs here,” Hanzo added quietly. “We understand that you came here to live away from those who wished you dead, and we apologize for any distress our arrival may have caused.”

Zenyatta hummed, low and grinding from the stone of his throat. “On the contrary. Some of the other races have come to study among us. You would be accepted just as they are, should you wish to remain.”

“You’ll let us stay and ask around?”

“So long as you do not bother those who do not wish to be bothered, I see no harm in it.” Zenyatta’s hands folded serenely in front of him, while Jesse tried to contain the grin that threatened to break loose. “In the meantime—”

“Master!”

Next to him, Hanzo stiffened. The sound of hurried footsteps continued towards them, and Jesse turned to face the interloper, wary of being suspected of wrongdoing already.

“Master, I heard we had visitors—”

“ _ Genji _ ?”

His name had never come across Sombra’s list, and between that and the reckless disregard he’d shown for his life on more missions than Jesse was comfortable with, Jesse had figured he knew what happened to him after the Watch disbanded. Seeing evidence to the contrary shocked him beyond belief, even if it came with a huge jolt of relief at being proven wrong.

But sure enough, his old Watch partner stood before him. Older and far more scarred than he’d been when they’d worked together — Jesse had to wonder when  _ that _ happened to leave them so silvered with age — but undoubtedly alive.

“Holy shit, what are you doing here?” He turned to Hanzo with the beginnings of a grin, ready to introduce his new partner to the old, when he realized that all the blood had drained from Hanzo’s face.

It only took Jesse half a horrified second to realize not only that they knew each other, but  _ how _ .

“Hanzo.” Genji stood stock-still a few meters away from them, looking nearly as shocked as his brother did. “I’m — glad you’re here.”

“You’re—” Hanzo’s mouth clicked shut, and he took in an audible breath through his nose. The muscle in his jaw jumped as he struggled for words.

Jesse touched his fingers lightly to the inside of Hanzo’s wrist. “We can clear out, give you two some privacy. That sound good?” He honestly wasn’t sure if that was the best thing, given how much painful history laid between them, but offering seemed like the right thing to do. He got a nod in response, sharp and jerky, so Jesse tilted his head towards the nearest door and held it open for Zenyatta and himself to pass through.

Zenyatta didn’t try to prompt him into talking as he led them on an ambling tour of the monastery grounds. Other than occasionally pointing out an area of interest, he kept mostly quiet, too — something Jesse was beyond grateful for. Two shocks of that magnitude in that short a time left him reeling. Surely not as much as either brother was, he felt certain. He just hoped he had his head screwed on straight by the time they emerged.

And, he realized as the bottom dropped out of his stomach, that they wouldn’t need to leave before getting their answers.

Evidently Zenyatta didn’t think so, as he pushed aside one of the heavy curtains along the wall to reveal a small room on the other side. “I apologize for not realizing sooner, but would you like to set down your belongings? I understand others tire more easily than we do.”

“Not sure I’ll be needing to set anything down, if we’re being honest. Sounds like we might be on our way sooner than we thought.”

“Nonsense,” Zenyatta said with a dismissive wave. “Genji has been hoping to find his brother for years. Now that you’re here, I believe it will be harder to convince him you have to leave, whenever that time comes.”

“If you say so,” Jesse murmured. Haltingly, he removed the bag from his back and set it along one of the walls.

The metal framing Zenyatta’s mouth warped in a makeshift smile. “Now, while we wait for them to finish - please tell me more about this friend in trouble.”

* * *

 

 

By the time Hanzo reappeared, looking more haggard than Jesse had ever seen him, Jesse had found a seat at the same table where they’d found Zenyatta. The constructs had started shoving tea and small snacks his way upon hearing of their quick ascent, more than eager to share their supplies and stories with a newcomer. Seemed Zenyatta hadn’t exaggerated how rare visitors were around these parts.

As soon as Hanzo entered the room, Jesse stood from the thin pillow they’d produced for him, brushing a few stray crumbs from the contours of his breastplate. “Pardon me,” he said with a quick tilt of his head, headed straight for the entry. This time it was Hanzo’s hand that went to Jesse’s elbow, gripping tighter than Jesse thought he realized to steer him out towards one of the doors leading outside.

It took a long while for Hanzo to speak. Staring out at the distant peaks, he said, “Genji...forgives me.  _ Says _ he forgives me.”

“That’s good news, isn’t it?”

Hanzo huffed out an exasperated breath. Even in the full light of day, Jesse could see the faint traces of vapor emerge into the chilled air. “I don’t know,” he said plainly. “He said he used to be angry, but his time here changed him. The first part I can believe, but the rest?” He shrugged.

“Matches up with what I remember. He was one hell of a loose cannon whenever we worked on the same squad. Started to settle in towards the end, didn’t bristle at anyone who tried to talk to him, but then — well. Never did figure out what happened to him after everything blew up in our faces.” 

“He seems to be doing much better now. Here.” Hanzo swallowed. “Even after everything, he says he wants to get to know me again. He wants me to be his  _ brother _ again.”

It hurt to hear the words, but it hurt worse hearing Hanzo sound so dazed. As if he couldn’t fathom how any of this could be real. 

“Hey, c’mere.” A light tug on his sleeve, and Hanzo stepped easily into his space as Jesse wrapped his arms around him in a lopsided embrace. His hand spanned the space between his shoulder blades, grounding Hanzo so he could preempt the question Jesse knew he was likely afraid to voice. “This whole time we’ve been on the road has been about finding family we thought was lost, hasn’t it? Means it was fine that Fareeha had to stay behind when she just so happened to find someone that fit that bill, and it’s the same for you now that you’ve found Genji again. We can stay as long as you like.”

Relief sparked in Hanzo’s eyes as they flickered to his. There wasn’t enough air in the world to fill his lungs, not with Hanzo looking at him like that. They stood so close that it would be easy beyond measure to close the final distance between them, and just as Jesse realized it he heard Hanzo ask, “Jesse, can I—”

Before Jesse could even respond, Hanzo’s eyes shuttered, as if remembering himself. Abruptly, he took a single step back, removing himself from the embrace entirely.

“Was gonna say yes, you know,” Jesse said, voice gone hoarse. 

Hanzo watched him with wide eyes. “You’re serious.”

“Very.”

That only seemed to make things worse. Hanzo’s jaw clenched so hard that Jesse feared he might snap something, but he managed to force out the words anyway. “Then — there’s something you need to know. About me. About my family.”

“If it’s about your family, then no need to worry about it,” Jesse said fiercely. He couldn’t even begin to imagine the forces that drove Hanzo against his brother like that, and he had no intention of judging Hanzo based on anything that had happened as a result of that kind of upbringing. “They’ve got no hold on you, not anymore.”

Hanzo raised a hand to Jesse’s cheek, the shining, silvery dragon’s maw on his wrist open in a silent roar. He couldn’t seem to drag his eyes away from it. Jesse wondered how much of that was to avoid looking at him directly. “I told you a bit about them already.” He seemed shaken up, even more so than after seeing Genji appear on the mountaintop with them. 

“You did,” Jesse said, gently prodding.

“Did you know Bahamut used to only be worshiped by dragons? Humans and the other smaller races didn’t flock to him until much later. But my family has worshiped him since the beginning, before he was even known by that name.”

The truth hung between them, large and terrible, and Jesse suddenly realized why Hanzo was having trouble looking at him. 

“Your tattoo isn’t actually Bahamut, is it?”

Hanzo shook his head. He tried to step away again, withdraw his hand, but Jesse caught it before he got too far. “You just keep on surprising me, don’t you,” he murmured. 

There was that same vulnerability, that flash of fear from when they’d first caught sight of the pseudodragons, and Jesse couldn’t stand to see it again. No wonder Hanzo couldn’t bring himself to let him that close until he’d told him. He pressed a kiss to his knuckles, then to his wrist. “You’re your own man now, whatever form that takes. Have to say, I’m pretty fond of the one I’ve gotten to know.”

“You’re certain?”

“Been certain for a while now, to be honest. Details don’t change that.”

Hanzo huffed out a wet laugh, saying, “ _ Details _ ,” like it was the most absurd thing he’d ever heard. Jesse just bundled him close, relieved beyond belief that it seemed like they were on the same page. 

This time, it was Jesse who closed the gap Hanzo couldn’t. The giddy joy in Jesse’s chest only grew when their mouths met in a slowly deepening kiss. He tasted metal, sharp and biting and everything Hanzo had taken steps  _ not _ to be after too long of knowing nothing else, and felt incredibly lucky that he’d been able to get to know this Hanzo.

Now that the truth laid before them, Jesse could only hope he’d be able to erase any of the lingering doubts that had kept Hanzo at a distance in the first place.

“Think of it this way,” he murmured when they finally had to break apart to breathe. “Genji never told me, and we worked together for  _ years _ . As far as I’m concerned, you’re golden.”

“I’m really not,” Hanzo said without a hint of real protest. Jesse’s gaze flickered down to the tattoo again before it returned to his face. The one he’d seen across camp for months, that he’d seen break into an unguarded grin at Fareeha’s stories about the old guard and twist into a grimace during unexpected rain. The face that greeted him more often than not whenever memories or anxieties woke him from sleep. 

“Gonna have to agree to disagree,” he said mildly, and pressed a kiss to his hair, right at his silvered temples. 

 

* * *

 

Awful kind of the monks to find room for them at the temple on such short notice. Separate rooms, even — although Jesse supposed they had the space if didn’t get too many visitors up this way. It had been ages since Jesse had this much space to himself, whether paid for or granted to a weary traveler.

Jesse should be grateful.

But truthfully, lying on his back in the silence of a sleeping mountaintop temple reminded him of nothing so much as being trapped under the rubble of the Watch, screaming himself hoarse long after the last of the survivors fled the collapse. He breathed his way stoically through the first hour, desperately wishing for a solid night of rest after the physical ordeal of climbing the mountainous path to the temple as well as the emotional pitfall they’d found at the top of it.

Not to mention what Hanzo had told him.

All he had to do was pretend someone else was there. It shouldn’t have been that hard. He’d slept at inns with rooms spacious enough that he could barely hear Fareeha’s softly whistling breaths from across the gap between their beds, and had no troubles then. Even the ruins Ana and Jack had holed up in were quieter than the temple, although he’d been surrounded by both Fareeha and Hanzo then.

The relentless silence continued to press in on all sides, intensifying the growing ache beyond the remnant of his arm.

Unable to stand the still air any longer, Jesse gathered up his pack and bedroll without allowing himself to overthink his actions, only pausing to wrap the blankets on the bed into a compact bundle he could carry in his arms. Never hurt to bring an offering.

The heavy fabric covering the opening to the room brushed against the chimes set into the temple wall as it swung to the side. It was enough to make Jesse wince reflexively at the disruption to the all-encompassing silence that hung over the temple, but apparently not enough to draw any attention from any of the other residents. 

At least it was only a short trip down the hall. He hesitated briefly in front of the curtain that blocked off Hanzo’s assigned room, then caught himself wondering if his steps were loud enough that Hanzo could hear him dithering outside. His familiars probably could, at the very least. 

The thought of anyone overhearing his hovering pushed him to shove the curtains aside and poke his head in. The blankets on the bed shifted, and Jesse heard a low grumble from one of the pseudodragons, but Hanzo didn’t respond to the sudden intrusion. “You awake?”

“No.”

Any other time and Jesse might’ve found the faint annoyance at being woken endearing. As it was, it just made him stumble over his request. “Can I just, uh — sleep on your floor? Promise you won’t notice me, so long as you don’t trip over me getting up, but I’ll stay out of the way—”

“On — on the floor?”

Hanzo’s surprise struck Jesse with a sudden rush of shame for presuming he might be willing to share his space when he no longer had to. Especially given the stresses of the day—

“You’re letting in a draft,” Hanzo complained tiredly, and seeing the pseudodragons shift in displeasure among the blankets covering their master, Jesse stepped inside, letting the curtain fall back into place behind him. 

The room lapsed back into half-darkness, lit only by the slivers of firelight that crept in on either side of the cloth; still, when Jesse turned to set his pack down on the ground, he saw more movement from the bed, blankets being rearranged as Hanzo shooed his familiars further towards the foot of the bed. When Jesse’s hands hesitated over the bindings on the bedroll, Hanzo said, “Leave your things there. You’re not sleeping on the floor when there’s room enough to share.” 

“You sure?”

“Jesse.” Despite the exhaustion evident in his voice, Hanzo’s tone made it clear what he thought of his idea. The low light glinted most strongly off the silvery strands of hair at Hanzo’s temples, but Jesse could see a matching look of exasperation on his face. 

Jesse left the pack where it sat, but held the extra blankets from his room protectively in front of him as he approached the bed. The critters would likely appreciate the extra warmth, he figured, even if Hanzo didn’t need it. He threw them over himself as he crawled into the vacated space and left the trailing edge out for Hanzo to do as he pleased with it.

Hearing three sets of out-of-sync breaths other than his own went a long way towards settling him. Jesse had enough time to wonder if he maybe shouldn’t be so easily lulled to sleep after everything that had happened after their arrival to the temple, but then one of the pseudodragons crawled gracelessly onto his hip, effectively pinning him on his side, and the weight of it grounding him in the present became far too much for him to stay awake against.

When he woke, he was pinned by far more than a single dragon — one remained on his hip, another curled against his stomach, and one muscled arm wrapped around his waist. Comfortable, but hotter than the Nine Hells. Jesse shifted minutely, just enough to free his arm from under the piled blankets. Hanzo’s arm flexed and then stilled when it became apparent that he wasn’t planning on moving further.

“Still not awake?”

All he received in response was a faint groan. It was such a far cry from the Hanzo he knew from the road that Jesse had to hide his smile in the pillow. Seemed like he wasn’t the only one who was glad to have the chance to sleep on something other than a bedroll on hard ground for once. 

The pseudodragons took some convincing, but ceded their spots without too much fuss. They settled back in, warm along his spine, once he rolled over.

To his credit, Hanzo did still  _ look _ asleep — his eyes stayed stubbornly closed against the weak light trickling in from the small window high on the wall. “You sure I can’t convince you otherwise?” Jesse asked. He couldn’t say he wasn’t tempted by the idea of getting to truly relax for once, but he’d hardly expected it from Hanzo, of all people.

Hanzo’s lashes parted just enough for Jesse to see a sliver of gray iris, and even that half-hearted glare was enough to put a delighted grin on his face. “You can  _ try _ ,” he said, imperious even as he tugged Jesse towards him.

Jesse’s hand trailed away from the human curve of Hanzo’s ear to cup the back of his head as they kissed, slow and lazy, pushing past the neat strands of hair Fareeha had taught him to braid out of his face. Hanzo’s deft fingers had no more difficulty picking up those motions than he had handling his arrows in battle. Just one more thing he’d wanted to learn. 

As persuasive as Jesse liked to think he could be, he also knew when he was fighting a losing battle. “You know, if breakfast is anything like dinner was, they might run out if we show up late.” He wasn’t above a bit of petty bribery if it gave him an edge. As tempted as he was to take advantage of the chance to catch up on rest, he was also ready to start the process of finding some answers.

Hanzo’s nose crinkled. He murmured something unintelligible against Jesse’s lips — not that Jesse cared to question him, considering he had more important things to do — but then a cool tingling sensation swept through his mouth, matched by a sudden freshness in Hanzo’s as they came together again, and Jesse realized what he had done. 

He guessed that was a no on leaving anytime soon.

Fastidious as ever, Jesse thought fondly, and no longer wondered how he hadn’t even had a flash of a second thought yesterday. Didn’t matter what kind of uncomfortable truth Hanzo had been sitting on this whole time, not when Jesse  _ knew _ him like he did.

“Starting to understand what they say about you and vanity.”

“Slander,” Hanzo protested with an utter lack of conviction, and drew him back in.

 

* * *

 

After a week of sleeping in fits and starts, Jesse gave in and quietly told Zenyatta he didn’t need his room. Saved him having to navigate the halls at night, and the space was probably better used on an initiate rather than a guest, anyway. 

Far too quickly, life at the temple settled into a routine: Jesse spent the morning with anyone willing to talk to him while they worked, pored over the books and notes stolen from the abandoned lab at lunch, and then spent the rest of the afternoon with Zenyatta discussing magical theory. Hanzo and Genji typically returned from wherever they went during the day by the time the dinner bell sounded, letting all four of them eat together.

The variety throughout the day worked well for Jesse. Usually he felt like he was in over his head when discussing magic, and even though he was quickly becoming more familiar with the particulars of how it worked, it still made for dense discussion.

Lending a hand with daily tasks around the temple helped him process everything that he learned and made those assigned to the task more willing to talk to him. Zenyatta never asked for anything in exchange for his time, but Jesse found he liked talking to him more than any of the other permanent residents of the temple. Never had been one to sit idle while others pitched in, anyway.

Afternoon found Jesse and Zenyatta toiling side-by-side in the garden that supplied the temple with extra produce in case of lean winters. It was fascinating to see warm-weather crops growing freely despite the sharp bite to the air, some of them nearly outgrowing the enchanted plot in their abundance. With the sun high in the sky, they had plenty of light to grow, and the frequent ministrations of the naturally-inclined mages residing inside the monastery did enough to make up for the rest. Between the gardens and occasional hunting trips for additional food — Hanzo and Genji had volunteered for one just a few days prior, no doubt ready to turn it into a competition — there was more than enough to feed the temple residents that actually needed to eat.

“Appreciate you all being so accommodating for this long,” Jesse said, finally breaking the silence. The vast valley stretching out before them amplified the low thuds of soil hitting soil as he dug with his sturdy little spade, and still, it felt like they were the only two people on the mountain.

Zenyatta waved him off. “It is no imposition, truly. I haven’t seen Genji this unburdened in years, and you have made yourself more than helpful around the temple.”

“Yeah, but it can’t be easy, having me around and asking uncomfortable questions. I keep asking everyone I talk to beforehand, making sure they’re alright talking about the war, but it’s hard to tell if they’re just being polite or if they genuinely don’t mind.”

Even though he had no true face to make an expression, Jesse didn’t think he was imagining the amused note to Zenyatta’s voice. “I can assure you, Jesse, if they didn’t—”

“Hey there.”

Jesse startled to hear someone so close, but when he spun around to check behind his back, there was no one there. “Over here, McCree.”

When he faced Zenyatta again, his glinting metallic eyes were instead covered in swirling purple light. His stone fingers raised in a lazy wave. “Are you the one I’ve been talking to the last few months?” he said, in the same light voice that had disrupted their work. 

“What’d you do to him?” Jesse demanded. He’d only ever seen that purple glow with one other spell, and given how unpredictable the people — person — behind it could be, the familiar shade didn’t reassure him in the least.

“Your friend’s fine. Once I tap out of the spell powering him, he’ll be good as new,” not-Zenyatta said dismissively. “If you’d like that to happen sooner rather than later, though, I’d answer the question.”

Jesse kept a firm grip on the spade in his hand. He wished he hadn’t left his crossbow back in the room, even if he couldn’t use it without harming Zenyatta as well. Cautiously, he said, “We’ve been trading off, but yeah, I’ve written a few times.”

“Hm. Haven’t written in several weeks, though. Already tired of chasing down has-beens?”

“Just busy with other leads. Been wondering about what you get out of it, actually — if you know where all the agents are, and Reaper’s looking for the agents, how come you haven’t just given him that information?”

Zenyatta’s hand came to cover the mouth of his faceplate as Sombra laughed, the sound looking entirely foreign emerging from a construct. “It’s cute how you think it’s profitable to just  _ hand over _ information. No, your perky little mascot paid me well for that info, so it’s hers and only hers, for the meantime. And yours, I guess.”

“But you knew Talon was going to hit the Academy. You’re working with them, aren’t you?”

“So? Talon doesn’t own me. I don’t have to give them anything, even if it’s Gabe asking. I like him, but I have limits, and wiping out a bunch of retired agents is just...sad. On multiple levels.”

Jesse barked out a laugh. The conversational tone was far from what he’d expected Sombra to sound like, but the more they talked, the more unnerved he became. “What does that make turning a monk into your puppet?”

“Like I said, he’ll be fine. Won’t even know I was here. But there’s some time-sensitive information you’re going to want to act on, and I didn’t know if you’d check the scroll again until it was too late.”

“What, going to try to feed us to cultists again? I’ll pass, thanks.”

“This might be your last shot to untangle Gabe from Reaper, but if you want to pass on it…”

Jesse went still.

“Thought so. A timeline’s been moved up, and, well. I don’t know that they’re going to need him around after this is done.”

He didn’t hesitate. “When and where?”

“Five days from now. Talon just found out there’s an artifact that didn’t get destroyed or stolen when the Watch collapsed. Between this mission location and the way things went at the college...Gabriel’s been confused, not himself. Or maybe more himself. I think you have a chance, and I  _ won’t _ repeat this, but I’d hate to see the guy get killed because our fearless leader got what she wanted.”

Five days — oh,  _ hells _ . He only had the vaguest idea of where the Watch had stood in relation to the temple, but he knew it would be a tight fit. He’d have to leave immediately.

“McCree? Be careful. Talon’s staking a lot on this artifact, so they’re going to be out in force.” 

The purple light faded from Zenyatta’s eyes, and he relaxed back into his previous posture, crouching delicately over the squash. “—want to talk to you, they wouldn’t,” he said with an airy laugh. “All of us present came to the monastery because we wanted to be around others rather than isolated.”

Jesse stayed silent, heart racing, frozen in indecision. His panic must have shown on his face, because Zenyatta leaned in closer. “Jesse? Are you feeling ill?”

“I — yeah, I am,” he heard himself saying. “Gonna go lie down for a bit, if that’s alright with you.”

“Of course.” Zenyatta sounded truly concerned, but for all the guilt Jesse felt at leaving him in the dark, he had to get away. At least he had the haversack, so he didn’t have to think about packing other than throwing everything he might need in the direction of its opening. Other than that, the only thing that might slow him down was if he had to fight one of the pseudodragons for his cloak; the little bastards had taken to sleeping on it during the day recently, and disturbing their rest—

Abruptly, Jesse remembered the reason both dragons were with him.

Hanzo and Genji wouldn’t return for another few days. He’d have to leave without him, head off to face Reaper with no one at his back. He’d probably get himself killed in the process.

Still, he had to  _ try _ .

 

* * *

 

Sure enough, it took some work to dislodge the dozing pseudodragons from their makeshift nest, and  _ then _ he had to contend with the two of them trying to attach themselves to his body by any means possible as he tried to leave alone.

Setting a pace that would allow him to reach the Watch in time proved to be even harder work. Traveling for so many hours at a time pushed his willpower to the limit, especially having to do it alone. When he rubbed the grit from his eyes at the start of the second day only to find two slit-pupiled eyes peering at him in the weak pre-dawn light, he thought that might actually be the thing that broke him.

“Didn’t want to listen, huh?” The pseudodragon only trilled innocently, climbing out of its resting spot inside his pack to twine around his forearm. “If we make it back, your twin gets a treat and you don’t. Just so you know why.”

The trill shifted into a high whine, but the little dragon’s warmth draped across his shoulders as he walked well into the night made the rest of the journey a little less miserable.

Jesse’s exhaustion was so complete that the true extent of his undertaking didn’t set in until he settled into place on a ridge overlooking the ruins of the place he’d worked and trained and lived in for years. No backup except for a nosy little pseudodragon, and yet here he was, waiting for Reaper to show up. He sat in his little vantage spot for long enough that doubt crept in — there was always a chance he’d arrived too late, or Sombra had given him bad information yet  _ again _ , even if she’d taken it seriously enough to risk a face to face warning of sorts.

Movement finally caught his eye halfway through a mouthful of hard bread — freshly baked, when he’d snatched it from the temple kitchen on his way out, but far past stale now. Trying not to choke on crumbs, he dropped it to the ground and repositioned himself for a better look. 

Cultists streamed out of the woods, led by an angular figure with a shock of red hair. For a long minute, Jesse stared out of his hiding place, uncomprehending even as his mind sifted through all the ways it made sense.

Ana and Jack’s certainty that Talon must have infiltrated the Watch to bring it down so easily. The rogue academic who’d attempted to steal the Academy’s tome before Reaper ever set foot on the grounds. Hells, the knowledge from any one of the books they’d found at her abandoned laboratory would make any cult want to court her, let alone all that magical ability and a highly respected position in the Watch to boot.

He felt like a fool.

Moira O’Deorain briefly hovered in front of the ruined entrance to the tower she had worked out of for years, before finally vanishing into the depths of Watch. 

Jesse’s hand flashed to the straps of his crossbow to make sure it was held securely in place. Looked like all of the cultists had followed Moira into the opening. He supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised that Sombra hadn’t been exaggerating when she said they’d be out in force.

Shame he wouldn’t be able to pick off a few stragglers left behind as lookouts on the way. Even if finding Reaper was his primary objective, he knew that stopping Moira from getting her hands on whatever she’d come here for was just as important. The fewer cultists she had as backup, the better, as far as he was concerned. 

With only a faint rustle of warning, a great black shape swooped down next to the collapsed tower, surveying the Watch’s former glory with deep-set yellow eyes.

“Oh,” Jesse said faintly. Black spots swarmed his vision. Blinking them away only rewarded him with another glimpse of the same dragon he’d first seen years ago, now guarding the point where Moira and her followers had entered the rubble. Seemed Moira was in fact smart enough to leave a lookout. “This is bad.”

 

* * *

 

Eventually Jesse’s muscles unclenched enough for him to move out from the shelter of the wall. Didn’t matter that there was a huge dragon down there — he might not know what Moira was planning on doing with whatever she was after, but if she was as involved as he now realized, then she had to be stopped. He’d spent long enough watching Fareeha be the brave one that he thought he might manage to go through the motions of it and do what needed to be done, even if it terrified him out of his wits.

“You stay here,” he said firmly to the pseudodragon. It didn’t look inclined to listen to him until he pulled out a bit of cheese, dangled it in front of its nose, and dodged grasping little claws to set it on top of his pack. “I’m not gonna be the one telling Hanzo you got yourself dissolved by some scaly asshole spitting acid.”

Sneaking his way towards the entrance to the ruins under a dragon’s nose might’ve been madness, but  _ this _ , Jesse had trained for. He’d honed his reflexes under Gabriel’s tutelage, even if he’d never expected to use them to dart from one pile of stone to another in the hopes of drawing a dragon’s eye. Even at the height of his confidence in his skill, he’d never been quite that ambitious.

The dragon’s head lifted, scenting the air; Jesse froze, his mind instantly jumping to the assumption that he’d been discovered, but the dragon only unfurled its wings where they wrapped around its body and lifted off. Once it took to the air, Jesse took advantage of its distraction to sprint the final few meters between himself and the tower, boots slipping on the scattered gravel as he closed the distance as quickly as possible—

Lightning snaked around his ankle and yanked him unceremoniously to the ground. Jesse scrabbled at the loose stone, disoriented by the sudden drop, but the uncoordinated flailing of his hand and crossbow was no match for the force dragging him backwards. All he succeeded in doing was dislodging the attachment that held his crossbow in place, leaving it behind in the cloud of fine dust kicked up by his struggles.

Coming to a stop brought no relief. The lightning leaped forward to surge through him, leaving Jesse gasping and twitching at the shock even as he flipped onto his back. He reached a shaking hand towards his belt, trying to feel for the dagger he kept there. Even one of his crossbow bolts would be better than being as utterly defenseless as he felt.

Gravel crunched under slow steps, coming closer, and just as Jesse’s fingers closed over the hilt of the dagger, Reaper’s masked face appeared above him. All Jesse could see behind the helm were sunken, unnaturally red eyes. This close, he could see Fareeha was right — that was hellfire crackling in their depths.

Reaper hefted the twin blades at his hips with a manic grin. “Shame you never learned to handle yourself in a fight up close. Wish you had some distance now, don’t you?”

The air around them rippled and surged like water being displaced, and a shadow fell over the sun, blotting out its light in a sudden eclipse. Jesse took advantage of the distraction to scramble further away, the stony surface rasping painfully at his palm as he put some distance between himself and Reaper. His hand landed on his fallen crossbow just as a furious roar echoed across the sky. He ducked instinctively, looking above him.

Wings stretched across his entire field of vision, jagged and gleaming, carrying an enormous steel dragon closer in a furious streak of scales. Jesse nearly dropped his crossbow again as fingers went slack around the straps. Another followed behind, more slowly, flying lower and dangling something from each of its claws. A few more wing beats, and the first steel dragon hurtled into the black dragon with a roar that threatened to shatter Jesse’s eardrums.

He’d seen those powerful jaws open wide countless times before in miniature.

He thought his heart might stop from fear as the two dragons began to snap and claw at each other, churning in midair as they fought, but his brief lapse in concentration came to an end as Reaper lurched close enough to slash at him.

It took all of Jesse’s efforts to stay out of range. Even though Reaper moved more slowly than he had at the Academy, each step stiff and looking painful, Jesse still felt every bit as vulnerable as he actually was. Hardly any cover to duck behind, no weapon to brandish, no shadows to disappear into — even if Reaper  _ was _ injured, he was still in a tight spot.

At least until the slower dragon drew closer, dropping lower as it flew, heading for the rubble rather than the fight playing out above. Even out of the corner of his eye, Jesse could see the shapes clutched in its grip resolving into humanoid figures glinting with armor. One carried a polearm.

All Jesse had to do was keep himself from getting cut to pieces until they got closer.

“Never known you to be one to get mixed up with demons,” Jesse said. Reaper growled and clenched a hand around one sword, and four beams of light arced into the gap between them. Jesse dodged all but one, his breath hitching as it slammed into his side — even with his breastplate, that would be one hell of a bruise later. “How’d that happen?”

For a moment, as he ducked around a corner leading further away from the entrance the cultists had disappeared into, Jesse had a brief hysterical realization that  _ taunting a demon _ was likely one of the most foolhardy things he’d ever done in his life. He chanced another look around and saw the second steel dragon gaining altitude again, vaulting towards the roiling mess of black and steel scales.

Must’ve already dropped Fareeha and the others off, then. Reinvigorated from the knowledge that backup would be there at any minute, Jesse finally finished attaching his crossbow and stood from behind cover just long enough to squeeze off a haphazard bolt in Reaper’s direction. It didn’t hit — didn’t need to — but it refocused his attention on him just as he’d hoped. 

A clap of thunder split the air, rippling outwards from the low-lying wall he’d put between himself and Reaper. His eardrums felt like they’d burst, but Jesse only allowed himself to grit his teeth against the pain as he sprinted towards another outcropping, the stone he’d sheltered behind completely shattered from the spell.

“Been going after people who didn’t have shit to do with what happened that day? That make you feel better?” It felt like he was yelling, given the way his voice cracked, but he could barely hear himself over the high-pitched ringing in his ears. Pausing to gulp down the healing potion he kept in a pouch for emergencies was a risk, but at least it made the worst of the dizziness fade away.

He nearly jumped out of his skin when a hand came down on his shoulder. But the gauntlet that covered it was golden, not black, and when his eyes shot upwards he found Fareeha crouched beside him with Ana and Jack not far behind.

“The cultists are already inside.” His tongue nearly tripped over the words to try as he tried to get them out faster, relieved beyond belief that they had a chance at stopping Moira  _ and _ Reaper. “Moira’s the one in charge — don’t know what they’re going after, but it’s something powerful.”

Ana’s gaze hardened. “O’Deorain?” At Jesse’s nod, she grabbed Jack’s arm. “We’ll take care of it. You two handle him.”

Too late, the soft step of leather onto moss-covered stone caught their attention.

Reaper’s eyes flashed between the four of them as he rounded the corner, and Jesse didn’t need to see the fiery bead of light that formed on the end of Reaper’s finger to realize what was headed their way.

“Move!” he shouted as he dove to the side. His shoulder hit the ground with a jarring crunch that sent a shock of pain down his side, but it was a small price to pay to evade the eruption of flame entirely. Ana and Jack gathered themselves and ran off before he could see if they’d been hit, although he supposed that meant they couldn’t have been too affected. He just hoped they’d make it to the cultists in time.

Fareeha was slower to climb to her feet, her breathing labored and sweat visible where it made her hair stick to her face and neck. He couldn’t imagine how hot plate armor would get after a direct hit from a fireball, but other than the blackened scorch marks against the gold of her armor, she didn’t look outwardly affected by the blast. As soon as she stood fully upright, she ran straight for Reaper, seemingly heedless of the twin swords he still gripped.

Caught off-guard by the sudden charge, Reaper stumbled backwards as Fareeha struck him with the haft of her glaive and knocked one sword out of his grip. “A fireball?  _ Really _ ?” she yelled, then slammed the glaive into his other hand. That sword joined the other on the ground.

“Did you bring your mother here to gloat over what she ruined?” Reaper seethed. “Her and Morrison must’ve known, they must’ve been in on it—”

Jesse had a bolt prepared and his hand on the mechanism in case he needed to use it, but he couldn’t stand to hear another second of the demon’s rambling. “Talon was what brought the Watch down in the first place! I  _ saw _ their damned dragon with my own eyes! The only one in on it was Moira — she’s been working with them the whole time!”

Reaper went suddenly, terribly still. For a moment, the hellfire in his eyes flared brighter than ever before, reflecting wildly off the metallic planes of his mask, and then went out altogether.

“You _ lied? _ ” he screeched, sounding more unhinged than ever before. His claw-tipped gauntlets raked down the sides of the mask, pulling away curls of metal as they went.

Before Jesse could protest the truth of his words, Reaper hunched in on himself, swaying as if he might collapse. Smoke began to stream out of every gap in his armor, thick and dark as pitch. Jesse took a stunned step backwards as it began to coalesce into two ragged wings framing a grotesque, vengeful face, its piercing white eyes darting between the three of them as it shrieked helplessly.

Fareeha’s eyes blazed with holy light and her voice rang with conviction as she took a step towards the billowing shadows, hand raised. As she spoke, light began to pierce and fracture the hazy form even as it screeched and batted its wings against the assault. 

In the end, it disappeared with far less of a struggle than Jesse would’ve expected: a faint pop, and it vanished from sight entirely. Fareeha lowered her hand and stood still for a moment, eyes closed against the lingering strain of the spell.

Gabriel looked even worse for wear than she did. He swayed on his feet, and Jesse only barely managed to reach his side before he fell. Even shaking from the disbelief that it had actually  _ worked _ , he still had enough strength to support Gabriel as he slumped, lowering them both into a sitting position on the ground.

One wavering hand came up to pull the mask from his face as he took a deep breath, and it was Gabriel, just Gabriel, before them.

“Are you hurt?” Fareeha asked, limping over.

With a ragged laugh, Gabriel said, “Could say that. Damned thing never let me heal properly after you fought me — us — at the Academy. Every time I thought to go grab a potion, it steered me towards something more important.”

“You, pissing off even more demons? Color me shocked.”

Fareeha shot him a look as she gathered more of the same light from her last spell in her palms, but Gabriel laughed at his words all the same. It quickly tapered off into a relieved sigh as Fareeha laid a hand on his shoulder. Healing magic seeped in where they touched, hissing faintly as it passed through the black leather, and the fire-bright fissures splitting his skin sealed to form faint scars.

“It’s been a while since I felt anything like that.” 

“Here, then.” Fareeha unfastened Helm’s pendant from around her neck and pressed it into Gabriel’s hand with a faint smile. “You look like you could use it.”

“Don’t know that I should have this, after all that.” Gabriel sounded subdued, but closed his fingers reverently around the pendant anyway.

“As far as I’m concerned, if that thing really did manipulate you somehow, the blame’s on the demon, not you.”

Gabriel shook his head, shutting his eyes against Jesse’s defense. “It didn’t even have to try very hard. I knew I was going to die in that pile of rubble. Didn’t even question it when a demon showed up and offered to let me live, track down anyone responsible for the Fall if I’d just let it have free rein over my body. It just — kept convincing me of what I needed to do to find the people behind it. Never occurred to me that it had to be involved to even be there in the first place, or that Moira had to be involved to turn up again so soon after.”

“Can’t say I was the most coherent when I stumbled out of there, either.”

“That’s called blood loss, you two,” Fareeha said, voice dry. “But I can tell you now, Gabriel — that demon won’t be coming anywhere near you again. I banished it far enough into the hells that it shouldn’t be able to crawl its way out during any of our lifetimes.” 

“Glad to hear it.”

A final, guttural bellow split the air as the ground shook. More of the wall around them crumbled, falling among the overgrown stone, but Jesse only had eyes for the paired steel dragons descending from the air, the black dragon nowhere in sight.

“Should we go after the cultists?” Fareeha asked. “I  _ really _ don’t want Moira getting her hands on whatever relic you said she’s after—”

“It’s for the dragon,” Gabriel muttered, so quiet Jesse barely heard it. “She wants a pet dracolich.”

“Don’t think that’s going to work out too well for her.” Fareeha stood again to look out across the field of scattered ruins and winced. “That thing looks pretty dead already, and I don’t think Mom and Jack were planning on letting the cultists do a quick ritual before killing them all.”

“Definitely not,” came Ana’s voice from behind them.

Both of them were absolutely covered in dust and filth but ultimately looked no worse for wear as they approached again. From the look on their faces, Jesse knew what they had to report before they even said anything.

“Teleported away before we could get to her,” Jack said, hitching a thumb back in the direction of the ruined entrance. His eyes darted towards Gabriel’s hunched form before returning to Jesse’s face. “Left us a bunch of cultists to mop up, though, so at least she’s the only one that made it out.”

Didn’t sit right, the idea of her getting away without any repercussions after doing what she’d done to Gabriel. “Can you scry on her? See where she went?” 

Ana began shaking her head even before Jesse finished speaking. “I already used that to find out where you’d run off to. I can try again tomorrow, but by then…”

“She’s lost her two most powerful assets in one day,” Gabriel said hoarsely. Some of the rasping growl from earlier remained in his voice, clearing away the more he spoke. “She’ll hide away somewhere to lick her wounds. If you go tomorrow, in a week — doesn’t matter. She won’t be able to do much of anything for a while, so you’ve got time.”

“If we wait a week, will you be up for coming with us? Tracking her down?” 

The wide grin that broke out on Gabriel’s face despite his exhaustion came as a relief. “Couldn’t keep me away,” he promised, sounding so much like his old self that Jesse could almost believe the intervening years had never happened. 

Jesse turned to Ana, caught on what she’d said. “You scried on me? When?” 

“Every day since you ran off without telling anyone,” Ana said, her single eye narrowed. “Hanzo brought Genji to us in a panic when they couldn’t find you, and  _ I _ had to be the one to tell him each time that I couldn’t see any distinguishing landmarks. You’re lucky I recognized the Watch in this state or else we never would’ve known where to go.”

“It was pretty rough road from the temple to here,” Jesse admitted. “Speaking of — do you all want to come back with us? I don’t know about all of you, but I’m going to need a while to rest up. The construct temple’s a fair sight more comfortable than squatting in an abandoned one.”

From the face Gabriel made at the mention of going back to more abandoned ruins, Jesse figured he had his answer.

“Alright, guess that’s settled,” he said, hauling himself upright. “Gonna go talk to our ride, if none of you mind.”

The two dragons were further out from the Watch’s outer walls than he expected, standing uneasily next to the the corpse of the black dragon, dwarfed by its size even as they towered far above Jesse’s height. All he could make out was a distant rumbling of Draconic, unintelligible to his ears. Neither of them seemed to notice his approach.

Up close, he could see both of the dragons’ hides were streaked with scars. 

“Hate to ask, but which one of you is Hanzo?”

Two finely-wrought heads swung in his direction, their grey eyes even more piercing in their true forms than the human ones Jesse was accustomed to. After a moment, one stepped away and took to the air, heading back towards the others, while the one that remained bent its neck so that its forbidding face was closer to Jesse’s level.

“Thanks for coming to help me out,” Jesse said softly. He set his hand on the enormous leg in front of him, careful not to cut himself on the steel scales. “I hated running off without saying anything, but I had to make it in time.”

The air twisted, and before Jesse could understand what he was seeing, he found himself with an armful of warm, human Hanzo clutching him tightly. Even the discomfort of their armor pressing between them couldn’t dissuade Jesse from holding him just as close.

“I knew the minute we came back to the temple,” Hanzo said. “I couldn’t feel my familiar  _ anywhere _ , and Zenyatta said you’d left in such a hurry. I thought if I could find someone to scry...”

“Ana’s got the materials for just about any kind of ritual, doesn’t she? That was a good thought, going to her,” Jesse assured him. Their foreheads tipped together, and Jesse couldn’t tell if it was sheer exhaustion or the fact that he felt truly safe for the first time since he left the temple, but he wanted nothing more than to stay put just like that. “And your familiar’s with my pack over the ridge, assuming it stayed there. I promised you’d give it a serious talking-to, so  _ please _ back me up on this. Otherwise neither of them will ever listen to me again.”

Hanzo’s mouth curved into an unguarded smile. “I would hate to disappoint,” he murmured, and Jesse, entirely too fond, said, “Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [bevacar's art for Jesse going to Hanzo's room](https://66.media.tumblr.com/55e5834d613ca7697ad6ebea9de529db/tumblr_inline_pplz9a9tOp1wsypsg_1280.png)
> 
> [bonus bevacar art of them at the temple](https://66.media.tumblr.com/7f4724978cbe33664586fa01b4f41946/tumblr_inline_ppm630AMKv1wsypsg_1280.png)

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! I tried a lot of new things here, so I'd love to hear what you think!
> 
> Many thanks to:  
> -The two artists for this project, Dragoonslinger and bevacar, for being such great Big Bang partners! They made some awesome art, and I feel super lucky that they were so engaged with this fic as soon as we were matched up. I had a lot of fun collaborating with them, and I hope you all enjoy what we made!  
> -Elisa for the beta and SadinaSaphrite for the initial plot beta. Any remaining mistakes are my own, let me know if I missed something important lmao  
> -And, of course, the team running the McHanzo Big Bang! There's a lot of other great fic that'll be posted over the next few days. I probably wouldn't have ever gotten around to actually sitting down and writing this if not for the BB (like, writing a fic this length during the third year of vet school may not have been my brightest idea, but when WAS I going to get a good time to write it??), so I'm super grateful to everyone in the server for being part of an event that finally got this thing off the ground.
> 
>  
> 
> Come hang out on [tumblr](http://pixelhanzo.tumblr.com/)!


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